It’s been a good week for Bitcoin. The dollar price is up more than 3 percent to around $9,500. That $10,000 ceiling is looking more fragile than ever. One sign that the ceiling may be about to break is the decline in Google searches for “Bitcoin.” According to Google Trends, search interest is the lowest since December 2019. Last time search interest fell by such a degree, the price climbed around 50 percent. One coin in which interest is running high—and putting up prices—is pennies. A slowdown in coin production caused by the coronavirus has led to a shortage of …

Sharon Bowen, a former Commissioner at the United States Commodities Futures Trading Commission, today said that the U.S. was falling behind other nations that are working on a central bank digital currency, or CBDC. During a webinar hosted by the consultancy firm Accenture, Bowen — currently a board member at Intercontinental Exchange — said that a CBDC would help the U.S. dollar maintain prominence in the world economy. She stated that if the U.S. does not want other nations to “threaten the monetary policy or monetary supply” of the dollar, it must seriously consider cross-border transactions through the use of …

The ability to verify documents and comply with anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements is now a differentiator for crypto firms, said identity verification provider Trulioo. Anatoly Kvitnitsky, Trulioo’s vice president for growth, told Cointelegraph that as crypto crosses many borders, those who want to stand out and maybe attract those looking to exchange crypto to fiat or vice-versa compliance with regulatory requirements. “It is a good idea to improve the crypto world’s approach to compliance, especially as exchanges become more and more common,” Kvitnitsky said. “Definitely something like document verification is very much a differentiator and that’s something …

It has been all over the news about the great Twitter Bitcoin hack of 2020. We’ve got you covered if you haven’t been paying attention to #CryptoTwitter this week. After a period of calm in the cryptomarkets, last week showed some movement. Unfortunately, it went in the wrong direction. Bitcoin was down about 3 percent over the last seven days—and it got off lightly. Ethereum fell more than 5 percent and Bitcoin Cash dropped over 8 percent. One reason for the fall might be a relationship between stocks and digital coins. Analysts note that Bitcoin shows a 95 percent correlation …

The Technology Advisory Committee, or TAC, a technology consultative wing of the CFTC, plans to conduct a remote gathering on July 16, addressing a number of talking points, as noted in a recently-unveiled meeting agenda. "At this meeting, the TAC will hear presentations from the TAC subcommittees on Automated and Modern Trading Markets, Distributed Ledger Technology and Market Infrastructure, Virtual Currencies, and Cybersecurity," the CFTC said in a July 14 statement. The CFTC released the meeting outline The CFTC's statement included a breakdown of the July 16 phone-based meeting. "The TAC meeting agenda includes key issues that will be discussed …

Two related cryptocurrency firms have fallen foul of United States financial regulators for entering into illegal off-exchange swaps in digital assets and foreign currency. On July 13, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an order filing and settling charges against the two firms. The same day, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it had reached a settlement agreement with the respondents ahead of instituting its own cease-and-desist proceedings. Misconduct and settlement with the SEC The two respondents operate from Manila in the Philippines and Mountain View, California, and are named “Plutus Technologies Philippines Corporation” and …

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a joint fine to Abra, a crypto portfolio app that let users get synthetic exposure to traditional markets. According to the SEC’s release, Abra effectively offered “security-based swaps” to retail investors without the proper registration, in addition to “failing to transact those swaps on a registered national exchange.” Abra offered a type of “centralized” synthetic asset, where users were able to get exposure to traditional securities like stocks by putting up Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC) as collateral. The system removed or added the coins based on how much …

The five-day Unitize virtual blockchain conference organized by BlockShow and San Francisco Blockchain Week ended with the final session on Friday. The event saw appearances from Heath Tarbert, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum; and Tim Draper, a serial blockchain investor, as well as other speakers from a diverse pool of market segments both within and outside the crypto space. Blockchain adoption, decentralized finance, central bank digital currencies and the future of Bitcoin (BTC) dominated the conversation in many of the panels. The event also saw speakers chart possible paths forward for …

It’s been another good, stable week for Bitcoin. No big breakout yet but also no sudden collapse and a comfortable rise of around 1.6 percent. If that sounds like Bitcoin is becoming a bit predictable, don’t rest too easy. Some analysts see this sideways period as the prelude to a big move—either up or down. Other analysts, though, are more positive. They see Bitcoin in the same place that Apple was in pre-iPhone days. They think it could reach $60,000 by 2023. If that happens, participants in a new German guerrilla marking campaign will be doing a lot of people …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note Policy changes slowly. Crypto wants to move fast. Sometimes fairly, sometimes not, the crypto industry often portrays traditional financial regulators as calcified relics unprepared to deal with the coming new world. To be fair, everyone seems to acknowledge that markets and trading systems need comprehensive upgrades, but national and international regulators are accountable to a wider range of concerns than any specific industry. The crypto industry sometimes takes that as a personal slight, waiting for some sudden burst of …

On July 9, LabCFTC, the fintech office of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, announced that it will replace its annual one-day Fintech Forward conference with three separate online sessions under the series title Empower Innovation 2020. The new conferences will take place on Sept. 24, Oct. 21 and Nov. 19, with LabCFTC subdividing the days by subject matter. Director and Chief Innovation Officer Melissa Netram told Cointelegraph this was an effort to deal with reduced attention span for virtual rather than physical events: “To do a full day we knew that we’d probably end up with people getting distracted.” Fintech …

Jon Barry Thompson, the accused operator of a fraudulent crypto escrow service that defrauded $7 million from two customers, is expected to enter a guilty plea — with prosecutors aiming to finalize proceedings in September. "The parties expect to reach a disposition of this matter and respectfully request that the court set a control date in September 2020 for the entry of that disposition,” the prosecution wrote in a letter submitted to the court. In April, Thompson’s counsel, Peggy Cross-Goldenberg, indicated that both sides had made “substantial progress” towards disposition. Four counts of fraud Thompson was indicted in September 2019 …