In her monthly Expert Take column, Selva Ozelli, an international tax attorney and CPA, covers the intersection between emerging technologies and sustainability, and provides the latest developments around taxes, AML/CFT regulations and legal issues affecting crypto and blockchain. Lately, news headlines are focused on regulators’ concerns over the lack of investor protections in the cryptocurrency market, which has ballooned to more than $2 trillion, and the possible risks to financial stability. National security agencies across the administration of United States President Joe Biden are grappling with high-profile cases of cryptocurrencies playing a role in ransomware attacks, intellectual property espionage, sanctions …
United States President Joe Biden will speak directly about cryptocurrency and its role in the attack on the Colonial Pipeline and other ransomware breaches, according to Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. In a White House press briefing on Monday, Sullivan said U.S. officials, seemingly including Biden, would like to see an action plan regarding ransomware attacks during the president’s visit to the G-7 summit this weekend. The national security adviser said this plan should address the resilience of such attacks, how to share information with other democracies and “how to deal with the cryptocurrency challenge.” Sullivan said crypto “lies …
The U.S. Department of State has announced it will be taking a seemingly more active role in the pursuit of keeping some crypto users accountable. According to a Thursday Bloomberg report, the Biden administration intends to ramp up efforts to trace cryptocurrency payments, particularly when it comes to ransomware attacks. The government plans to address cybersecurity and crypto’s role as payment in such attacks. The report comes as the State Department recently announced its Rewards for Justice program would be offering bounties of up to $10 million for assistance in identifying actors responsible for cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in the …
The office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on June 16 the addition of six Nigerian individuals to the sanctions list for cybercrimes. According to the official announcement, Nnamdi Orson Benson, Abiola Ayorinde Kayode, Alex Afolabi Ogushakin, Felix Osilama Okpoh, Micheal Olorunyomi, and Richard Izuchukwu Uzuh are the individuals that joined to the “OFAC’s Special Designated Nationals” list. Special cybercrime-related issues authority given to the U.S. Treasury The announcement does not name the allegations against the new specially designated nationals. However, the “CYBER2” classification derives from the Obama administration, which issued an executive order …
While some global cryptocurrency exchanges move to expand Know Your Customer (KYC) rules, some major rivals claim that crypto platforms do not need KYC at all. Digitex, a Seychelles-based crypto derivatives exchange, will start removing KYC identification this week in response to a major user data leak that happened last month. Digitex will have no KYC identity requirements as of April 2020 Adam Todd, CEO at Digitex Futures Exchange, revealed the news in a public video statement on March 4, declaring that Digitex will have all KYC identification processes removed from its platform as of April 2020. Todd clarified that …