Regulation

Georgia, a major cryptocurrency-friendly country among Post-Soviet states, is preparing to start monitoring crypto firms to prevent money laundering and comply with sanctions. The National Bank of Georgia plans to launch mandatory supervision of virtual asset service providers (VASP) starting Sept. 1, 2023. NBG’s acting governor Archil Mestvirishvili said that the new regulatory measures will

An Italian senator spoke before members of the Italian parliament with — unbeknownst to parliament members — a speech entirely composed by artificial intelligence (AI). In the parliamentary meeting on May 31, Italian Senator Marco Lombardo pulled the stunt to spark a “serious debate” among his colleagues about what’s at stake and in-store from AI

The crypto sector appears to have dodged another bullet. At the time of publication, the United States has reached a political agreement to raise its debt ceiling, avoiding a calamitous default on its obligations, and this resolution probably won’t include any new taxes on cryptocurrencies.  But that doesn’t mean the question of U.S. crypto taxation

Tether-issued USDT (USDT) stablecoin broke past a new all-time-high market cap of over $83 billion as it continues its stablecoin market dominance. The new ATH market cap for the USDT stablecoin comes in a year when other stablecoin issuers are struggling to remain afloat due to regulatory ire. The same was pointed out by cryptocurrency

The Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, Crypto.com, announced on June 1 that it had been granted a major payment institution (MPI) license for digital payment token (DPT) services by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). The announcement comes after Crypto.com received its in-principle approval from MAS in June 2022. With the MPI license, Crypto.com is now authorized

The Australian government has announced a sudden eight-week consultation that will seek to understand whether any “high-risk” artificial intelligence tools should be banned. Other regions including the United States, the European Union and China have also launched measures to understand and potentially mitigate risks associated with rapid AI development in recent months. On June 1,

Japanese artificial intelligence experts and researchers are urging caution over the use of illegally-obtained information to train AI, which they believe could lead to “a large number of copyright infringement cases,” job losses, false information, and the leaking of confidential information. On May 26, a draft from the government’s AI strategy council was submitted, raising

A fresh headcount reduction is coming to crypto exchange Binance, which is reportedly planning to lay off 20% of its workforce in June. The job cuts come after the company said earlier this year it would not lay off any employees. According to the exchange, the decision is not a downsizing but rather a resource

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is seeking to subpoena documents from Fenwick & West. That’s the law firm that served as the outside counsel to FTX, Alameda Research and SBF personally from “early in their development” until the FTX bankruptcy. Now SBF’s legal team wants to use the documents in his defense in the 13-count criminal case

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has suggested a link between cryptocurrency payments and companies based in China that provided precursors for the opioid fentanyl. In a May 31 hearing of the United States Senate Banking Committee on China, Warren pointed to a report from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic to suggest a connection between cryptocurrency and “illegal

Officials with the European Union have signed the Markets in Crypto-Assets, or MiCA, bill into law following final approval from finance ministers. On May 31, Sweden’s minister for rural affairs, Peter Kullgren, and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola signed the long-anticipated cryptocurrency regulatory framework into law roughly three years after the European Commission introduced the

Huobi has become the first member of the Hong Kong Virtual Assets Consortium (HKVAC), the Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange announced on May 31. The new organization promises to provide a ratings service and indexes when it is fully launched. The new organization is debuting at a crucial moment, as retail cryptocurrency trading begins in Hong Kong

Barney Frank, a former member of the United States House of Representatives and board member of Signature Bank, has pointed fingers at certain members of the public in the wake of the bank’s collapse. In a May 30 hearing before the New York State Senate, Frank said he had “no mea culpas” regarding the failure

Lawmakers in the European Union are seeking to implement a code of conduct for the development and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) prior to their forthcoming EU AI Act.  In a joint meeting of the EU-U.S Trade and Technology Council in Sweden on May 31, the EU tech chief Margrethe Vestager said officials in the

Cryptocurrency is going to become less private in Europe as the major exchange Binance is preparing to delist all privacy tokens in countries like France and Italy. Starting from June 26, privacy tokens like Monero (XMR) or Zcash (ZEC) will no longer be available for trading for Binance customers in France, Italy, Poland and Spain.

Under new rules from the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE), licensed financial institutions (LFIs) would be required to verify the identities of all customers. The update will come into effect “within a month” by the end of June.  On May 31, the CBUAE published guidance for LFIs on risks “related to virtual

Officials in China have issued a warning about the risks posed by the rapid advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) development and subsequently called for tighter measures on national security.  The remarks come from a meeting on Tuesday in which Chinese President Xi Jinping, and other prominent members of the communist party, stressed the country’s ambitions

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is going after crypto influencers who have promoted scam projects and are often found manipulating the prices of certain tokens based on their tweet. Former SEC Chief John Reed Stark took to Twitter to warn such crypto influencers to be ready to face prosecution. Attention all crypto

“Adversary nations” like China could ultimately benefit from restrictive crypto policies in the United States, warns Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.  In a May 30 op-ed for MarketWatch, Armstrong again warned that while recent turbulence in crypto markets might tempt U.S. policymakers “to write it off as an unstable asset class,” doing so could see the

Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) central banks are looking to collaborate on cryptocurrency regulations and financial technology development. On May 30, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) said it met with its counterparts at the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) with the two agreeing to “strengthen cooperation” on “virtual