Politics, Legal & Regulation

December 17, 2019 @ 4:47 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Macau businessperson Frederico dos Santos Rosário and his Hong Kong business partner, Dennis Lau, are being prosecuted in Macau for promoting OneCoin, a fraudulent $4 billion USD cryptocurrency scheme started by Bulgarians Ruja and Konstantin Ignatov and pervaded across the world. According to Journal Tribune… Read More

December 17, 2019 @ 1:22 am By Cali Haan  |  

Chinese authorities have arrested Yang Zuoxing, an electronics engineer who reputedly designed several of Bitmain’s most popular “Antmine” cryptomining rigs in 2016 before he left and started a rival firm called MicroBT. Since then, Coindesk reports, MicroBT, based in Shenzhen, has reportedly captured about 40% market… Read More

December 16, 2019 @ 11:31 pm By Omar Faridi  |  

Salv, an anti-money laundering (AML) company established by former employees at Skype and TransferWise, has secured $2 million via a seed funding round. Salv’s investment round was led by Fly Ventures, Passion Capital and Seedcamp. N26 founder Maximilian Tayenthal, former Twilio CTO Ott Kaukver, and… Read More

December 16, 2019 @ 7:42 pm By JD Alois  |  

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has issued a “notice of proposed rulemaking” (NPR) to “modernize its brokered deposit regulations.” According to the FDIC, the proposal would modernize a regulatory framework built for a different era to remove regulatory disincentives to offering deposit accounts to… Read More

December 16, 2019 @ 2:31 pm By JD Alois  |  

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee (SBCFAC) met to review, and vote on, recommendations for the Commission as part of the concept release on regulatory harmonization. During a public call, a discussion was held on addressing the… Read More

December 16, 2019 @ 11:22 am By Omar Faridi  |  

China’s “smart” courts have reportedly been implementing various innovative technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) to help decide legal cases. Local media outlet Xinhua news revealed recently that over 3.1 million Chinese litigation matters from March to October 2019 were handled via the… Read More

December 15, 2019 @ 2:58 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The operator of a Montana cryptocurrency “mine” says he has been “blindsided” by the arrest of Matthew Brent Goettsche, indicted earlier this week for allegedly pervading a $722 million USD cryptocurrency fraud. According to The Sacramento Bee, Rick Tabish of Butte, Montana, has been operating a cryptomining… Read More

December 15, 2019 @ 9:55 am By Cali Haan  |  

The New York’s Attorney General’s Office submitted a comprehensive brief to the Supreme Court of New York on December 4th summarizing the current state of the NYAG’s case against Bitfinex and Tether et al., cryptocurrency companies accused of fraud and market manipulation. Lawyers for the… Read More

December 14, 2019 @ 12:43 pm By JD Alois  |  

The European Commission has invited interested parties to participate in an open market consultation for the forthcoming “European Blockchain Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP).” The Commission’s goal is to boost the development of distributed ledger technology, or blockchain, for the European Blockchain Service Infrastructure. A “Pre-Commercial Procurement”… Read More

December 14, 2019 @ 11:58 am By Cali Haan  |  

A 23-year-old who allegedly used cryptocurrencies he stole from crypto executives and users to fund the purchase of houses, a Ferrari, a Rolex and the royalty rights to twenty songs was arrested in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, December 11th. Anthony Francis Faulk has been charged with one count of… Read More

December 13, 2019 @ 3:29 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Lawyers appointed to represent users harmed by the failure of the cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX have asked the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to exhume the body of the exchange’s founder, Gerald Cotten. The letter from the Miller Thompson law firm in Toronto states: “The purpose… Read More

December 13, 2019 @ 1:00 pm By JD Alois  |  

This week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee (SBCFAC), submitted a recommendation to the Commission on the definition of an accredited investor. The SEC will look for guidance from the Committee as it values the feedback of front line… Read More

December 11, 2019 @ 9:09 pm By Cali Haan  |  

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Shopin founder Eran Eyal with violating antifraud and registration provisions of federal securities laws in an ICO (initial coin offering) sale. The SEC says Eyal raised $42.5 million USD selling Shopin cryptographic or “blockchain” tokens to… Read More

December 11, 2019 @ 6:31 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Four men have been arrested and charged with promoting a cryptocurrency mining pyramid scheme that defrauded victims out of $722 million USD. Matthew Brent Goettsche, Jobadiah Sinclair Weeks and Joseph Frank Abel were arrested in various locations in the United States early this month and were… Read More

December 11, 2019 @ 3:54 pm By Cali Haan  |  

New York’s more crypto-friendly iteration of the Department of Financial Services is seeking comment on a new set of guidelines to help licensed New York cryptocurrency dealers select tokens for listing or adoption. The NYDFS says that, since 2015, it has issued two dozen licenses and… Read More

December 11, 2019 @ 12:55 am By Cali Haan  |  

After being granted the right earlier this year to demand user records from 3 cryptocurrency exchanges in the country, Denmark’s tax authority, the Skattestyrelsen, has now sent 20 000 letters to Danish citizens it believes may have skirted taxes on capital gains from cryptocurrency trades. Recipients… Read More

December 10, 2019 @ 9:45 pm By Cali Haan  |  

Bogdan Nicolescu, 37, and Radu Miclaus, 37, two members of a Romanian gang that controlled a network of at least 40o ooo malware-infected computers, have been sentenced to 18 and 20 years in prison each. According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office,… Read More

December 10, 2019 @ 11:57 am By JD Alois  |  

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Jay Clayton spent his morning today (December 10, 2019) testifying in front of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. In prepared testimony (embedded below), Chair Clayton addressed multiple issues including those that impacting regulatory modernization as… Read More

December 10, 2019 @ 2:35 am By Cali Haan  |  

South Africa’s Reserve Bank (Sarb) is drafting new rules to prevent cryptocurrencies from undermining currency controls in the country, IOL reports. The rules will come into effect in the first quarter of 2020, Sarb deputy governor Kuben Naidoo told journalists last week. South Africa’s financial… Read More

December 10, 2019 @ 1:51 am By Cali Haan  |  

The SEC is seeking to depose UK citizen John Hyman, whom Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has identified as “Telegram’s chief investment advisor.” The SEC believes Hyman brokered many of the private deals that helped Telegram raise $1.7 billion USD from 171 investors in two sales of GRAM… Read More