New York City Mayor Eric Adams has hit out at his state’s BitLicensing regime, claiming that it stifles innovation and economic growth. In a closing keynote interview at the Crypto and Digital Assets Summit in London on Wednesday, Adams suggested his state legislature counterparts in Albany “listen to those who are in the industry” adding: “It’s about thinking not only outside the box, but on this one, we may have to destroy the box.” Adams is a crypto advocate who ran for mayor, planning to turn New York City into the “center of the cryptocurrency industry,” and took his first …
Earlier today, PayPal confirmed that it would be adding crypto payments to its global platform over the coming months. The rollout will begin in the United States, where PayPal also became the first recipient of the New York Department of Financial Services', or NYDFS, conditional Bitlicense, a program that the regulator announced this past summer. The devil in the details While the news is huge for crypto, PayPal will be under intense scrutiny. The nature of the conditional Bitlicense is that conditional licensees have to pair off with firms that have full Bitlicenses (in this case, Paxos) that will act …
The New York State Department of Financial Services, or NY DFS, is proposing a “Conditional BitLicense” framework to reform its controversial BitLicense regulation introduced in 2015. In a request for comment released on June 25, the regulator details its reformed approach to issuing conditional BitLicenses. This license type had already existed since the beginning of the program, but there were no clear rules for accessing it as it was entirely at the discretion of the regulator. The new framework would allow prospective licensees to collaborate with an existing BitLicense holder to obtain dedicated guidance relating to the structure, capital, systems …
American stock brokerage Robinhood Crypto has officially launched its zero-fee crypto trading app in New York, the company announced in a blog post on May 23. Following the acquisition of a BitLicense by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) in January 2019, Robinhood now allows New York citizens to trade in seven major cryptos with no commission fee using its Robinhood Crypto platform. From now, the Robinhood Crypto service is available in 39 states in the United States, including California, Washington and Florida, among others. The Robinhood trading app allows for the trading of bitcoin (BTC), ethereum …
On April 26, the State of New York put itself at the forefront of the regulatory struggle with crypto, as its Assembly voted for a two-year moratorium on crypto mining operations that use energy generated by fossil-fuel power plants. Depending on how one looks at it, this development could either signal a new alarming legislative trend or a trigger that would accelerate the digital asset industry’s movement toward a more sustainable path. Moratorium with further evaluation The lower chamber of the NY state legislature, the Assembly, passed a bill that would put a two-year hold on any new mining operations …