A senior manager at banking giant Goldman Sachs in London has reportedly left the company after making a fortune on meme-based cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE). Aziz McMahon, a former managing director and head of emerging market sales at Goldman Sachs, had resigned from the investment bank allegedly after netting major gains from his DOGE holdings, The Guardian reported on Tuesday. Though reports did not specify exactly how much money McMahon made from his Dogecoin holdings, sources claimed that it was a substantial sum, pointing out that DOGE rallied over 1,000% in value this year. According to sources, the finance veteran was …

Ireland’s crypto businesses have become subject to regulatory oversight for the first time, with local digital asset firms now observing Anti-Money Laundering guidelines set out by the European Union. The EU’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, or 5AMLD, was transposed into Irish law on Friday, via the Criminal Justice Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Amendment Act of 2021. The legislation requires firms that operate with crypto assets, custodial wallet providers — dubbed Virtual Asset Service Providers, or VASPs — and the businesses that service VASPS abide by the same regulatory standards as mainstream financial firms. Irish VASPs must now register with …

Irish lawmakers will impose an anti money laundering regime on crypto for the first time in April The Central Bank of Ireland has extended the nation’s anti-money laundering, or AML, and countering the financing of terrorism, or CTF, guidelines to apply to Bitcoin and crypto assets from April. Starting next month, Ireland’s crypto asset service providers must comply with AML rules and other regulations for the first time. The new rules are a result of the inclusion of the latest European Union AML Directive into Irish law. Companies that operate with crypto assets, and any firms providing services to them, …

As the Bitcoin (BTC) price sees a sharp upsurge, the governor of the Central Bank of Ireland has voiced his concerns about cryptocurrency investments. Gabriel Makhlouf, who is also a governing council member of the European Central Bank, warned the public about the risks of crypto investment on Bloomberg TV this Friday. The central banker specifically referred to a recent warning by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority on Jan. 11: “As the U.K. authority said a few weeks ago [...] if people want to invest in Bitcoin they've got to be prepared to lose all their money. That's certainly …

United States’ retail giant Overstock is expanding its blockchain wing tZero with new hires in Ireland. The Utah-based e-commerce company is seeking to hire software and devops engineers to work on its blockchain and security token subsidiary tZero, local tech news agency Silicon Republic reported on Nov. 10. As reported, the new hires for tZero are part of a new team at Overstock’s headquarters in Sligo in western Ireland. The online retail company already employs 90 people working in AI, research and development, and machine learning. Amit Goyal, chief technology officer at tZero, told Cointelegraph that Ireland is the only …

Cryptocurrency firms in Ireland will soon be regulated in line with the latest European legal framework for the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing. On Aug. 10, the Cabinet of Ireland approved a bill to transpose the criminal justice elements of the European Union’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD5) into national law, thereby strengthening existing legislation. Approval from the Cabinet gives Ireland’s Minister for Justice and Equality, Helen McEntee, the go-ahead to publish the new bill, entitled The Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2020. Among other provisions, the bill brings virtual currency providers and online …

Facebook’s Calibra is looking to create 50 new roles for its workforce in Ireland, as the firm seemingly bucks the trend of private-sector layoffs during the coronavirus crisis. An Irish Times report on April 20 revealed that Calibra’s small team in Dublin is set to be significantly expanded this year, with Facebook noting that its Irish operations are “critically important” for its roadmap. Calibra’s Irish expansion still depends on regulators’ cooperation Based in Ireland since 2009, Facebook employs 5,000 people in the country across its various partner firms, such as Instagram and WhatsApp. Founded in 2019, Calibra has been at …

Coinbase reports that it migrated its Tezos (XTZ) staking bakery from the United States to Ireland while incurring just one minute of downtime on March 31. Since launching its staking service for XTZ in 2019, the exchange has come to operate the largest validator in the Tezos network. Regulatory needs of Tezos ETP provider sparks Coinbase bakery migration The Irish migration of Coinbase Custody’s Tezos Bakery was necessitated by the regulatory needs of Swiss digital asset product provider Amun. In 2019, Amun launched the first Tezos-based exchange-traded product on the SIX Swiss Exchange. Coinbase provides both custody and baking services …

Janet Jackson’s billionaire ex husband, Wissam Al Mana, has demanded that Facebook reveal who was behind ads on the platform that used his image to promote a crypto scam. The case stems from late February when Al Mana filed a lawsuit against the social media giant about a cryptocurrency scam using his name to promote itself in the Middle East. Al Mana claimed defamation, malicious falsehood and false advertising from the purported cryptocurrency firm ‘Bitcoin Trader’. One man to sue them all Facebook has since deleted the offending ads, but Al Mana is concerned fraudsters can publish similar ads containing …

Major United Kingdom and Ireland-based auction house Wilsons Auctions is putting $125,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) under the hammer later this month. In an announcement on March 6, Wilsons revealed the auction will be hosted by Wilsons Auctions Dublin on March 24. The Bitcoin is being sold on behalf of the Belgian Federal government, which seized the cryptocurrency in criminal cases and is now cooperating with Wilsons’ Asset Recovery Department to dispose of the Bitcoin. The auction will be unreserved, i.e. without a minimum price set for the winning bid. First public online auction in Ireland While Wilsons has previously …

Dubliner Clifton Collins, who was recently imprisoned for drug trafficking, claims that robbers took the keys to the $56 million in Bitcoin (BTC) Irish High Court had ruled should be confiscated. After obtaining more than 6,000 BTC by 2017, Collins decided to insure himself against hackers by distributing the cryptocurrency across 12 newly created accounts. Thus, he transferred 500 BTC into each of them, the Irish Times reported on Feb. 21. As of press time, that would leave each wallet worth roughly $4.87 million. A punishment for his own stupidity? Collins then printed out the keys for all of his …

An alleged drug dealer lost 52 million euro (over $56 million) in Bitcoin (BTC) after the Irish High Court ruled that they were criminal proceeds and should be confiscated. Local news outlet Independent.ie reported on Feb. 19 that the court accepted that Clifton Collins was involved in drug trafficking. Collins did not contest the Criminal Assets Bureau’s (CAB) application for the seizure of his assets. Authorities began investigating Collins when police found a quantity of cannabis in his vehicle during a traffic stop. This led police to search an address in a village in Galway and discover a large number …