Schlagwort: crypto news

• Tether calls Wall Street Journal’s claims “stale allegations from long ago.”
• The USDT issuer noted in a recent blog post that it adheres to all regulatory and legal requirements around KYC, AML and Counter Terrorism Financing.
• Tether says FUD will not distract it from its role as the leading stablecoin.

Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin Tether (USDT), has repudiated a recent report about it and Bitfinex as “wholly inaccurate and misleading.” Bitfinex is a leading crypto exchange with ties to the USDT issuer.

On Friday last week, The Wall Street Journal published a report that claimed Tether and Bitfinex had used phony documents and entities to gain and maintain access to bank accounts. 

Per the report, the fake documents allowed the cryptocurrency companies to access banking services that would otherwise have not been extended to them.

Tether says WSJ report is “misleading”

Tether dismissed the allegations by the Wall Street Journal in a blog post published on 3 March. Striking back at the media outlet, Tether said the report had brought out “stale allegations from long ago,” and noted the claims against it were misleading.

Accordin to Tether, just as Bitfinex, its operations are anchored on “world-class compliance programs.” 

Specifically, the two companies have and continue to adhere to all the applicable Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) requirements.

As well as adhering to the above legal requirements, both platforms have partnered with global law enforcement to further compliance and help the broader crypto ecosystem, Tether noted. This includes voluntarily working with the US Department of Justice and multiple other law enforcement agencies across the world to combat money laundering and terrorism.

As for the WSJ report, the team says it is yet another attempt at using FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) against it. However, this “unfair attack” won’t distract Tether from its role within the crypto industry – which is to continue being the most liquid and most reliable stablecoin.

Bitfinex and Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino slammed the WSJ as being obsessed with spreading FUD about the two crypto companies. He tweeted the sentiments while at the PlanB anniversary in Lugano, Switzerland.

Love the obsession for Tether. I hope WSJ will not start asking Tether a rent. So far we lived rent free in their minds. https://t.co/RprcySQDp1

— Paolo Ardoino 🍐 (@paoloardoino) March 3, 2023

The crypto market reacted sharply to the Tether news, with the price of Bitcoin plummeting further after another sell-off linked to another news development around the Silvergate Bank. BTC price nosedived to lows of $22,000 before seeing a minor bounce over the weekend.

Although the Tether team did not comment on the impact on markets, they noted that the company does not have exposure to Silvergate. 

The post Tether claps back at WSJ over “stale” FUD appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Kristin Smith, CEO of crypto industry group Blockchain Association is optimistic of crypto regulation this year.
• She notes that crypto enforcement actions and settlements have been “behind closed doors” affairs.
• Crypto regulation should be about the entire marketplace, not specific players or companies, she added in an interview with Bloomberg.

US regulators have in the past few weeks brought enforcement actions or reached major settlements with crypto companies, including Paxos, Kraken and Coinbase. Individuals have also been fined for their role in crypto-related schemes.

But Kristin Smith, the CEO of Blockchain Association, believes despite these actions, it is Congress that still needs to do the legislation and that the process should be as transparent as possible.

Crypto enforcement actions are “behind closed doors”

In an interview with Bloomberg, aired on Wednesday, Smith noted enforcement actions or guidance from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators has picked up pace in recent days.

While the regulators have had to step in as proper legislation from lawmakers lags, Smith is critical of what she says in action and settlements that are taking place “behind closed doors.”

According to the Blockchain Association CEO, crypto needs proper regulation and the process of putting these into place has to be transparent.

“What we really need is a more open process where we look comprehensively at the entire marketplace, figure out the appropriate way to regulate, regulate different actors within it, within the crypto ecosystem, and move forward in an open process where everyone can participate.”

Congress has to tailor regulatory framework to crypto

Smith says Congress has been slow to formulate the needed regulatory framework and as regulators step in based on the same rules that apply to traditional assets, it is becoming more frustrating for crypto industry players. 

More so, people in Washington, including crypto-friendly lawmakers who were keen on pushing for proper regulation, have been left a little “burned” and “betrayed” by what happened with the collapsed crypto exchange FTX. 

Yet, she’s hopeful that the House Financial Services Committee’s move to form a special digital assets sub-committee is a great step towards getting the legislation done. But as legislation is a process, it cannot be expected that everything will be in place overnight.

According to her, the stablecoin market is likely to be the first area to get regulatory clarity in the US – particularly after the industry came close to bipartisan legislation in 2022.

“The work has been done there,” Smith explained, adding that Congress needs to come up with a regulatory framework tailored to crypto because the risks associated with this sector are not the same as those around traditional financial services. This has to be a priority, she said.

As noted earlier, US regulators have been overly aggressive, with actions against stablecoin issuers, staking service providers and crypto custody firms.

The post Crypto regulation needs to be more transparent, Blockchain Association CEO says appeared first on CoinJournal.

• The US SEC crypto crackdown does not seem to be fizzling out any time soon.
• Former NBA star Paul Pierce has agreed to pay $1.4 million to settle charges levelled against him by the SEC.
• The charges levelled on Pierce are related to the promotion of EMAX tokens

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on February 17 announced through a press release that it was charging former NBA star Paul Pierce for promoting cryptocurrency. The development came right on the heels of a string of fines by the SEC targeting crypto firms including the recent wells notice to Paxos for issuing Binance USD stablecoin.

In a tweet the SEC said:

“Today we announced charges against former NBA player Paul Pierce for touting EMAX tokens on social media without disclosing the payment he received for the promotion and for making false and misleading promotional statements about the same crypto asset.”

Paul Pierce agrees to settle the penalty

Paul Pierce early today has agreed to pay the $1.409 million as announced by the SEC on Friday.

The charges against Pierce were for promoting EMAX tokens on Twitter. The SEC claimed that Pierce did not disclose what he had been paid to promote the token and also went ahead to make false and misleading statements about the token.

It is reported that Pierce received $244,000 to promote EMAX tokens. He however posted a bank account with huge figures than his bank account actually had.

The law requires celebrities to disclose their payments when promoting securities. The SEC Chair Gary Gensler warned investors to be careful and do due diligence on investment opportunities including crypto assets endorsed by celebrities.

The post US SEC fines former NBA Star Paul Pierce $1.4M for crypto appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Senator Elizabeth Warren first introduced the AML Act of 2022 on December 15, 2022.
• The first bill was read twice and referred to the Senate banking Committee.
• The senator now wants to reintroduce the bill to also cover decentralized entities.

The past few weeks have seen some hostile moves by several regulatory authorities in the US including the recent $30 million imposed on Kraken forcing it to shut down its crypto-staking product. There has also been the issue of the US SEC accusing Paxos Trust of issuing unregistered security, the Binance USD (BUSD).

Going by these trends, Jake Chervinsky a lawyer and Chief Policy Officer at Blockchain Association tweeted saying that “fears of a crypto crackdown have never been higher.”

1/ After a streak of hostile moves by US regulators, with rumors of more to come, fears of a crypto crackdown have never been higher.

It may be tough, but we can chart a path through it.

Let’s discuss the state of crypto policy: what’s happening, why, and what we do next 🧵

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) February 14, 2023

Sen. Warren’s AML bill

Just as if the recent developments are not enough, Senator Elizabeth Warren has promised to reintroduce the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022 that she first introduced on Dec. 15, 2022. The new bill, according to the senator, will cover decentralized entities” like decentralized organizations (DAOs) and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

Previously during the February 14 Senate Banking Committee hearing titled ‘Crypto Crash: Why Financial System Safeguards are Needed for Digital Assets,’ Sen. Warren said that the crypto community decentralized entities that operate on code to be excused from AML requirements. She said:

“In other words, they want a giant loophole for DeFi written into the law so they can launder money whenever a drug lord or a terrorist pays them to do so.”

According to Sen. Warren, this is why she believed including DeFi and DAOs in the AML policies is important. She noted that the current AML laws do not cover the broader crypto market and it was probably the reason why the crypto exchange ShapeShift was restructured as a DeFi platform.

The post Sen. Warren to reintroduce AML bill extending to DeFi and DAOs appeared first on CoinJournal.

• Stefan Rust, CEO of Truflation, says the SEC’s ruling about BUSD being a security has no sense legally.
• The former Bitcoin.com CEO believes there’s a political angle to the action, pointing to Binance’s freezing out of USDC last year as a likely trigger.
• Rust’s comments follow the New York Department of Financial Services order for BUSD issuer Paxos to cease issuing new tokens.

Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, said on Monday that it would continue supporting the Binance USD (BUSD) stablecoin, but could look at alternatives as a new main trading pair.

The move came after Paxos, the US-regulated issuer of the stablecoin, was ordered to stop minting new BUSD by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

It all “make no sense,” says Truflation CEO Stefan Rust

As we reported yesterday, Paxos announced it would comply with the NYDFS order. The company also said it would be terminating its relationship with Binance, but maintained BUSD is not a security. 

Notably, Paxos announced it would litigate to the extent it can, a lawsuit by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that labels BUSD an “unregistered security.” Indeed, it pointed out that the SEC had only called into question the BUSD section of the US-regulated company.

Stefan Rust, the CEO of Truflation and former CEO of Bitcoin.com, says the SEC’s action against Paxos does not make sense – legally. He says it all looks like a politically influenced process.

“To many observers, this looks like a highly political play influenced by the fact that trading volumes of USDC – the favored stablecoin of US institutions like BlackRock (which can make or break any economy with its $10 trillion balance sheet) are dwindling in comparison to USDT and BUSD,” Rust said in a comment shared with CoinJournal.

USDC issuer reportedly complained about Binance

Over the past few months, Binance had looked to increase BUSD use across its ecosystem, including through providing no-fee trading on the stablecoin’s trading pairs. The exchange also rolled out the auto-conversion of USD Coin (USDC) and True USD (TUSD) among other stablecoins into BUSD as part of boosting liquidity in September.

It’s a move that effectively “froze out USDC” from the Binance exchange, and has coincided with a period that Circle, the company behind the rival stablecoin, reportedly filed a complaint with the NYDFS over allegations of reserves mismanagement by Binance.

Rust, a leading blockchain entrepreneur and crypto investor,  suggests BUSD’s significant growth in terms of volume, as that of USDC dwindled, may have something to do with the regulatory action against BUSD issuer Paxos.

“It could be possible that behemoth investors in USDC like BlackRock – which directed and brokered the US government’s entire response to the global financial crisis of 2008 – might be keen to halt the progress of BUSD,” the Truflation CEO noted.

“Indeed, the SEC and other regulators have made no secret of their intention to pin Binance’s management team for any number of reasons, from money laundering to flouting US sanctions against other countries (which arguably has nothing to do with Binance as a non-US entity),” he added.

The SEC’s investigation against Paxos and the allegation that BUSD is a security follows comments made in September by SEC Chair Gary Gensler about stablecoins having features that are similar to, or that potentially compete with money market funds, bank deposits and other securities.

In a written speech published on 8 September 2022, Gensler said that these types of tokens, while used primarily as a means to participate in the market, still raised important policy issues.

He noted that if this is deemed the case, then the stablecoin issuers would have to register them as so and provide needed investor protections. He said:

“Depending on their attributes, such as whether these instruments pay interest, directly or indirectly, through affiliates or otherwise; what mechanisms are used to maintain value; or how the tokens are offered, sold, and used within the crypto ecosystem, they may be shares of a money market fund or another kind of security. If so, they would need to register and provide important investor protections.”

On Monday, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted that should BUSD be deemed a security, the ruling could have “profound impacts” on crypto development.

The post SEC ruling on BUSD “makes no sense”, says Truflation CEO appeared first on CoinJournal.