The United States faces a growing threat of transnational cybercrime, particularly against its financial system. In what may be the largest prosecution of its kind in U.S. history, the U.S. Department of Justice has charged Texas tech billionaire Bob Brockman in a 39-count indictment with evading $2 billion in taxes. The businessman used encrypted devices and code words to conceal his wire fraud, tax fraud and money laundering within a network of offshore entities and bank accounts. As the CEO of Reynolds and Reynolds Co., Brockman contributed 6.4% to the United States’ current annual deficit of $3.1 trillion — more …

In cryptoland, the fall tends to be regulators’ open season. As unprecedented as it’s been, 2020 is no exception to this trend. Tensions are high on both sides of the Atlantic: As markets were still processing the news of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission cracking down on derivatives exchange platform BitMEX, the Financial Conduct Authority, the British financial watchdog, moved to ban retail investors from using cryptocurrency derivatives altogether. The densely packed news cycle has somewhat muffled the impact of another regulatory bomb that dropped a week earlier and is bound to have major lasting effects on the …

In January 2020, the European Union released its Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive to increase transparency while tackling fraud, money laundering and cybercrimes. The 5AMLD extended the scope of customer due diligence checks, introduced domestic and politically exposed persons, extended the creation of central registrars of beneficial ownership, and extended Anti-Money Laundering checks to majority-owned subsidiaries outside the European Union. Related: New EU AML compliance laws could disrupt the crypto industry In December 2020, an updated Anti-Money Laundering Directive, known as the 6AMLD, will come into effect around the world, and any organizations operating within the EU will need to comply …

A crypto payments network has been unveiled as the 10th member of Blockchain for Europe. Blockchain for Europe voted in favor of Electroneum’s membership, as their goal for financial inclusion has attracted the attention of crypto and blockchain experts worldwide. The crypto project will now rub shoulders with fellow members that include Binance and Ripple as the group “focuses on blockchain promotion and education to help the EU remain at the global forefront of innovation.” Blockchain for Europe is designed to help prominent businesses in this sector influence policymaking in the trading bloc. Welcoming Electroneum, the organization’s chair, Maria Minaricova, …

The EU decided to remove Cayman Islands from its blacklist of tax heavens on Tuesday. The Cayman Islands is a popular jurisdiction for crypto businesses. It was added to the EU's blacklist in February of this year, so it has spent fewer than six months on the list. In 2019, the six exchanges domiciled there were responsible for over $1.5 billion in international Bitcoin (BTC) transactions. Though these numbers pale in comparison to the global leader — the Seychelles, whose 12 exchanges were responsible for $36 billion, the Seychelles remain on the blacklist and are categorized as a nation that …

The European Commission’s newly proposed cryptocurrency regulations pose a specific risk for the decentralized finance industry, according to industry regulatory adviser XReg Consulting. Adopted by the European Commission on Sept. 24, the proposed Markets in Crypto-Assets, or MiCA, regulations aim to strengthen consumer and investor protection in the crypto industry by laying out a series of obligations on crypto-asset issuers. The regulations stipulate that crypto-asset issuers must be incorporated as a legal entity in order to operate crypto services in the European Union. This particular requirement, however, could represent a significant challenge for DeFi projects because DeFi tokens’ issuers are …

The European Central Bank (ECB) could begin seriously considering and studying the digital euro by mid-2021, the bank said in a report released Oct. 2. The report examined how a digital euro may impact retail payments and how it can protect payments in the future. It also looks at how virtual currencies could fit within the landscape of the entire Eurosystem. However, it does not specify what model the ECB should take when and if it designs its digital currency. Based on the report, the ECB may start a virtual currency program “to ensure meaningful answers are obtained to the …

Major players in the global cryptocurrency community have addressed the European Commission’s new legislative proposals on digital assets. The International Association for Trusted Blockchain Applications, or INATBA, has released an initial response to the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulations proposed by the EC. The association features major crypto companies like Ripple, ConsenSys, and Iota. In its official response to the EC, the INATBA members expressed the industry’s concerns over the proposed MiCA regulations, calling the authority to bring their forces together in further development of the regulatory framework. While the INATBA generally sees the MiCA as a positive step that …

The European Commission is moving to provide more legal clarity and certainty for the cryptocurrency industry in its member states. On Sept. 24, the EC officially adopted a new digital finance package including digital finance and retail payments strategies, as well as legislative proposals on crypto assets. The EC said that the new package represents the first time that the authority proposed new legislation on crypto assets. As part of the new legislative proposals, the EC pays special attention to stablecoins — a type of cryptocurrency that pegs value to an external reference like the United States dollar or an …

Any digital currency released in the European Union may not fully replace fiat, said the President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde. Speaking at an online meeting of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly on Sept. 21, Lagarde stated that the bank was exploring “the benefits, risks and operational challenges” of a European central bank digital currency (CBDC), but fiat currency would likely still play a role in this digital future. “A digital euro could be a complement to, not a substitute for, cash,” Lagarde stated. “It could provide an alternative to private digital currencies and ensure that sovereign money remains …

The European Union, or EU, plans to incorporate crypto and blockchain technology into its main processes by 2024. Over the next four years, the economic union aims to firm up fresh regulations that will promote blockchain and digital asset usage for international money transfers, according to internal documents that Reuters reported on Friday. The documents detailed: “By 2024, the EU should put in place a comprehensive framework enabling the uptake of distributed ledger technology (DLT) and crypto-assets in the financial sector [...] It should also address the risks associated with these technologies.” Finding that almost 80% of its population transacts …

When Malta set out to provide a regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency sector, policymakers and advisers recognized how blockchain, distributed ledger technology and smart contracts, as well as related technologies, imposed new challenges to providing consumer protection and to fitting within existing legal structures. Immutability of data — and subsequently code, or rather smart contracts — is a desirable feature to provide guarantees to users that data (and smart contracts) cannot be tampered with. However, this also poses a critical challenge: Often, it is impossible, or infeasible, to change code once it has been written to such a distributed ledger. …