Due to Celsius Network’s withdrawal suspension in mid-June, the very topic of crypto lending made its entryway to the acute issues list for the regulators. Last week, lawmakers and officials continued to raise the question of necessary action, with significant utterance belonging to one of the key European crypto skeptics, Christine Lagard. European Central Bank president got so impressed with the Celsius crisis that she coined the term "MiCa II," referring to the main regulatory package for crypto in the European Union. Lagarde believes the new MiCa should include separate crypto-asset staking and lending guidelines. It’s not necessary to be …

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler is in talks with Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) officials on a “memorandum of understanding” on the regulation of digital assets. Together, the agencies can assure market integrity, Gensler told The Financial Times in an interview published Thursday. “I’m talking about one rule book on the exchange that protects all trading regardless of the pair — [be it] a security token versus security token, security token versus commodity token, commodity token versus commodity token,” Gensler told the newspaper. Gensler’s desire to be collaborative comes as a variety of legislative initiatives …

Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson has told Congress it should make regulations for crypto but leave compliance up to the software developers. Hoskinson likened the ideal arrangement for crypto regulation to the way banking self-regulation works during a Thursday congressional hearing, telling legislators, “it’s not the SEC or the CFTC going out there doing KYC-AML, it’s banks:” “It’s a public-private partnership. What needs to be done is to establish those boundaries, then what we can do as innovators is write software to help make that happen.” The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) …

Disclosure was an important theme at a United States House of Representatives hearing on digital asset regulation Thursday. Although chair of the House Agriculture Committee Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy and Credit Sean Maloney specified that it would focus on gaps in the oversight and regulation of derivatives and underlying spot markets, the discussion ranged widely. The Agriculture Committee oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates financial markets along with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Chainalysis co-founder and chief strategy officer Jonathan Levin said in his testimony that cryptocurrency’s transparency provides unique insights into the markets, including …

It was first reported before Christmas that Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis planned to introduce a comprehensive crypto regulation bill. The Republican Lummis was already known for her pro-crypto stance and announced right away that she was looking for a Democratic co-sponsor. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who had not previously been known to have a strong position on cryptocurrency, was named as the co-sponsor in March. The highly awaited Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA) was introduced in the United States Senate on June 7. The RFIA is 69 pages of text thick with legal and crypto jargon. There is an …

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler said he’s worried that a proposed bill to create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies could weaken investor protections in the traditional financial market. Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CFO Network Summit on Tuesday, Gensler was asked his thoughts regarding a recent bill introduced on June 7 by Senators Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). He responded, saying “we don't want to undermine the protections we have in a $100 trillion capital market,” adding: “We don’t want our current stock exchanges, mutual funds, or public companies to, sort of …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly launched a probe to discover how crypto exchanges are working to prevent insider trading. FOX Business reported on Wednesday that a person with direct knowledge of the SEC’s activities said that the commission had sent a letter to a major crypto exchange requesting information about how the platform protects users from insider trading. The source believes the same letter has been sent to multiple exchanges. It is not clear which exchange or exchanges have received the request, but the news outlet said Coinbase, Binance, FTX and Crypto.com all declined to …

On June 2, 2022, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) initiated an action against Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. Among other things, the complaint alleges that Gemini made a number of false and misleading statements to the CFTC in connection with the potential self-certification of a Bitcoin futures contract, the prices for which were to be settled daily by an auction (the “Gemini Bitcoin Auction”). In the complaint, the CFTC specifically articulated the position that these statements were designed to mislead the commission as to whether the proposed Bitcoin futures contract …

Bitcoin (BTC) briefly broke above $32,000 on May 31, but the excitement lasted less than four hours after the resistance level proved to be tougher than expected. The $32,300 level represented a 20% increase from the May 12 swing low at $27,000 and it provided the necessary hope for bulls to buy some $34,000 and higher call options. The fleeting optimism reverted to a sellers' market on June 1 after BTC dumped 7.6% in less than six hours and pinned the price below $30,000. The negative move coincided with the United States Federal Reserve starting the process of scaling down …

The long-awaited Responsible Financial Innovation Act to create a regulatory framework for digital assets was introduced in the United States Senate on Tuesday. The official text of the 69-page document was also released. The bipartisan bill, sponsored by Senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, “addresses CFTC and SEC jurisdiction, stablecoin regulation, banking, tax treatment of digital assets, and interagency coordination,” according to a statement. The statement continues, “Understanding that most digital assets are much more similar to commodities than securities, the bill gives the CFTC clear authority over applicable digital asset spot markets.” The senators …

A leaked copy of a United States draft bill concerning cryptocurrency started doing the rounds on Twitter earlier on Tuesday. The 600-page copy of the leaked bill highlights some of the key areas of concern for regulators including decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoins, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and crypto exchanges. here you go (plz RT) pic.twitter.com/UOVhIUiUBu — slam (@bot_slam) June 7, 2022 User protection seems to be the primary focus of regulators, with policies intended to require any crypto platform or service provider to legally register in the U.S, be it a DAO or DeFi protocol. This could highly curtail chances …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Binance Holdings broke securities rules when it launched its BNB token in an initial coin offering (ICO) five years ago, Bloomberg reported on Monday. Binance is the world’s largest crypto exchange, and BNB is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency. The BNB ICO took place in July 2017 on several platforms during the height of the so-called ICO boom, and the Binance exchange opened just days afterward. According to Bloomberg, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter, at least one U.S. resident claimed to have taken part in the ICO, which could be …