Russia’s Ministry of Finance has upped the stakes in its drawn-out showdown against the country’s Central Bank by formally introducing a bill that proposes to regulate digital assets rather than banning them. On Feb. 21, the Ministry introduced a draft of the federal law “On digital currency” to the government. This stage of the legislative process precedes the bill’s introduction to the parliament for consideration. The agency cited the “formation of a legal marketplace for digital currencies, along with determining rules for their circulation and range of participants” as the rationale for the initiative. Emphasizing that the bill does not …

It might seem unlikely that BlockFi founder and CEO Zac Prince would describe a prosecution that resulted in a $100-million fine for his company as “a win not only for BlockFi but for the broader cryptocurrency industry,” but that is indeed what he said. And, he might be right, although it remains to be seen for now. The settlement Founded in 2017, BlockFi is a New Jersey-based crypto financial institution with a team of 850 and one million clients worldwide. Its popular BlockFi Interest Account product, with half a million users, including 407,000 in the United States, was the object …

One of the main themes among the crypto community in 2021 was China’s aggressive policy toward mining, which led to a complete ban on such activities in September. While mining as a type of financial activity has not gone away and is unlikely to disappear, Chinese cryptocurrency miners had to look for a new place to set up shop. Many of them moved to the United States — the world’s new mining mecca — while some left to Scandinavia and others to nearby Kazakhstan, with its cheap electricity. Mining activities can’t stay under the radar forever, and governments around the …

On Feb. 18, the Russian Ministry of Finance kicked off public consultations on the rules of cryptocurrency issuance and transactions. While a welcome development, it is less than the country’s crypto space had expected to get. Earlier in the week, the government announced that by Feb. 18, a bill containing the finance ministry and central bank’s consolidated position on crypto regulation would be drafted. Updated estimates suggest that it will take at least another month for draft legislation to see the light. The main reason for the delay appears to be the central bank’s renewed resistance, which just several days …

Bitcoin (BTC) mining generates a lot of “waste” heat. As energy prices spiral out of control in Europe, miners have come up with creative ways of recycling the heat generated by solving valid Bitcoin blocks. Whereas in Norway, a miner is drying wood from the local timber mill, across the North Sea in the Netherlands, a miner is heating greenhouses to grow produce and bloom “Bitcoin flowers.” In a win-win partnership between a Dutch farmer and a Bitcoin miner, Bitcoin Bloem mines Bitcoin and bud flowers in greenhouses in the province of North Braband, southeast of Rotterdam. It works like …

Ripple’s court battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has recently seen new developments that, according to some observers, could foreshadow an impending resolution of this massively consequential case. Feb. 17 marks the deadline for Ripple to unseal a series of 2012 documents whose contents will likely sway the opinions of both the court and the public toward either one side or another. In another plot twist, the court’s decision to treat some of the SEC’s documents as open to discovery could set a groundbreaking precedent for similar cases involving U.S. executive agencies. Here is where things stand …

It is not the first time the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected proposals for a Bitcoin spot exchange traded product (ETP), but efforts continue to be made by different financial institutions. The recent attempt made by Cboe BZX Exchange on Jan. 25 to list the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Trust as a Bitcoin ETP has also failed. The SEC letter published on Feb. 8 pointed out that the exchange has not met its burden to demonstrate the fund is “designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts” and “to protect investors and the public interest”. Although proposals of Bitcoin …

The husband-wife duo accused in the infamous $3.6 billion Bitcoin (BTC) money laundering case had quite a contrasting valentine. A federal judge upheld the decision of a suspended release for wife Heather Morgan while husband Ilya Lichtenstein has been sent to pre-trial detention. Beryl A. Howell, the chief judge at the Federal District Court in Columbia, ruled that Lichtenstein has the motivation and resources to flee and thus must be kept under detention. While Morgan managed to fulfill the criteria for a suspended release on a bond of $3 million. The lawyer representing the couple denied any motivation for fleeing …

Several storylines that had been long in the making dominated last week’s news cycle in the cryptocurrency policy and enforcement department. The Russian government has made another huge step on the path toward creating a tailored regulatory framework for digital assets, unveiling its consolidated view that crypto is to be treated as currency rather than swept under the rug of a blanket ban. While this movement in the direction of crypto’s formal legitimization is a welcomed development, a host of questions persists related to both the exact shape of the new regime and its enforcement. The biggest enforcement story of …

On Feb. 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, announced actions against crypto lending company BlockFi over its failure to register high-yield interest accounts that the agency deems to be securities. New Jersey-based BlockFi will pay $50 million in settlement to the SEC and another $50 million to 32 U.S. states that brought similar charges. This marks some of the heaviest penalties ever imposed by a U.S. federal regulator on a cryptocurrency service provider. The firm also agreed to stop onboarding new customers to the unregistered service, BlockFi Interest Accounts, and attempt to bring it into compliance with the …

Last year, El Salvador dominated headlines as the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. The move is controversial both in and outside of the country, heralded for its potential to bring financial services to large portions of El Salvador’s unbanked population and criticized for its top-down implementation. This has created a sense of uncertainty and made some Salvadorans feel they lacked a choice, despite locations like El Zonte already accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as payment through organic developments that predate the law. These arguments, while for and against the law, don’t actually exist in contradiction to one another. While …

For Venezuela, 2021 has been a year of considerable changes at the microeconomic level, where even more than in 2020, the results of powerful catalysts for change such as COVID-19 were clearly visible. In a more dynamic economy with a higher volume of operations with foreign currencies, cryptocurrencies played a key role during this year for the South American country. In this review, we’ll take a look at the highlights of the Venezuelan crypto ecosystem in 2021 including related areas such as trading, play-to-earn (P2E) games, fintech, mining, regulation and nonfungible tokens (NFTs). More people accepting cryptocurrencies According to blockchain …