In the past three years the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has shot down several applications for a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund. This dashed hopes of many investors who believed Bitcoin price would rally higher if an EFT was approved. Although investors no longer pin BTC’s future on the existence of an ETF, regulators could eventually adjust their anti-crypto stance in the future. In an interview with Cointelegraph, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce said that the regulator will have to become accommodative to innovation as several people from both the crypto space and traditional financial institutions seek their guidance. Bloomberg’s latest …

A new report from the U.S. Department of Justice alleges that crypto traders dealing with coins like Monero, Dash, and Zcash are engaging in “high-risk activities.” According to the report by the U.S. Attorney General's Cyber Digital Task Force called Cryptocurrency: An Enforcement Framework released on Oct. 8, anonymity enhanced cryptocurrencies (AECs) can undermine existing anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) regulations put in place by businesses engaged in virtual asset activities. The task force cited coins including Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH), and Zcash (ZEC). “The Department considers the use of AECs to be a high-risk …

Investors are concerned about the stability of the cryptocurrency market after it was faced with a flurry of adverse news in the past few days. Fortunately, the markets have matured to the extent that negative news no longer provokes wild price swings like they once did in crypto’s early days. The current stability shows that institutional investors do not consider the recent KuCoin hack, CFTC and DOJ charges against BitMEX, or even President Donald Trump being diagnosed with coronavirus as serious enough events to crash the crypto markets. Therefore, there was no panic liquidation in Bitcoin (BTC) futures after the …

Once viewed as one of the crypto industry's top privacy-focused assets, Dash (DASH) no longer operates under that classification, according to the Dash Core Group, the body overseeing the asset and its development. When asked if Dash should remain under the category of a privacy asset, Fernando Gutierrez, CMO for the Dash Core Group, told Cointelegraph: "No, Dash is a payments cryptocurrency, with a strong focus on usability, which includes speed, cost, ease of use, and user protection through optional privacy." Dash launched as a fork of Bitcoin in 2014. Originally called XCoin, before changing its name to Darkcoin, and …

Recently, the United States Internal Revenue Service caused a stir in the crypto community when it put a bounty on the head of anonymity-focused crypto-asset Monero (XMR), offering $625,000 to anyone who could effectively track the purportedly untraceable asset. As the crypto and blockchain industry values anonymity and privacy, questions arise on the result of the effort, not to mention its plausibility. “As of the current stage of cryptography science today, the Monero protocol is almost impossible to break with necessary certainty,” Pawel Kuskowski, CEO of Coinfirm — a blockchain analytics company — told Cointelegraph. “However, it does not mean …

In Sweden, cash in circulation represents only 1% of the country’s gross domestic product, and some experts predict the nation will go “totally cashless” by 2023. In China’s largest cities, over 90% of people use WeChat Pay and Alipay as their primary payment method, with cash a distant second. It may seem that the transition to a world without paper banknotes and metal coins is inevitable, but this week, a survey reminded us that reports of hard cash’s death may be greatly exaggerated. The study by Genesis Mining, titled “Perceptions and Understanding of Money 2020,” reports that 60% of Americans …

Two offices of the United States Department of the Treasury have issued advisories on ransomware payouts, which they say pose a threat to national security. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, reminded cryptocurrency processing companies of their duty to file suspicious activity reports when they have a reason to suspect that their services are being engaged for such payouts to sanctioned individuals: “Among these entities are digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) companies and cyber insurance companies (CICs). Some DFIR companies and CICs, as well as some MSBs that offer CVCs [convertible virtual currency], facilitate ransomware payments to cybercriminals, …

On Wednesday, the IRS awarded two $625,000 contracts looking for tracing tools for privacy token Monero and Layer 2 protocols. The winners were blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and Integra FEC. The IRS initially publicized its quest for a privacy-busting analytics solution at the beginning of the month. An IRS representative told Cointelegraph that the agency had selected the two winning firms out of a field of 22 proposals received, though the only rationale the representative gave for the agency’s decision was “comparative analysis was used.” Chainalysis is among the leading firms in crypto analytics and routinely wins such contracts with …

Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by the Winklevoss twins, aims to improve user privacy with a major privacy token, Zcash (ZEC). Starting Sept. 29, Gemini will support shielded withdrawals of ZEC, which allows users to hide their transaction data. Gemini representatives said that the new feature is the “first time shielded ZEC withdrawals are available on a regulated exchange.” The new option comes in line with Gemini’s mission to strengthen financial privacy and “empower the individual through crypto,” Gemini executives said. Launched in 2016, Zcash is a major privacy-focused cryptocurrency, enabling two user privacy levels through two types of addresses …

The total crypto market capitalization has recovered from the Sep. 6 lows near $314 billion but it is struggling to sustain above the $350 billion mark, which shows that higher levels continue to attract sellers. Bitcoin’s (BTC) dominance fell from above 68% in mid-May to about 56% in the first half of this month as DeFi tokens embarked on a strong bull run. However, in the past few days, the DeFi assets have witnessed sharp corrections and their volatility has increased. This could possibly shift traders’ attention back to Bitcoin. It’s also possible that Bitcoin’s inability to hold above the …

By way of disclaimer, today’s Law Decoded is going to be especially America-centric. Writing to you from the ghastly swamp that is Washington, D.C., I generally try to keep these newsletters more globally minded, displeased as I am with how often the news cycle acts like this town is the center of the solar system. Thematically, however, the relationship between the capital and the rest of the country is central to this week’s news. U.S. federalism is a critical feature of this remarkably frustrating country. The back-and-forth between federal and state power is one of the defining tensions of these …

The United States Internal Revenue Service has better ways to spend taxpayer dollars than offering bounties to break Monero’s (XMR) privacy, a Monero working group says. After the IRS announced it is offering up to $625,000 to anyone who can break Monero, a major Monero-focused workgroup expressed their take on the matter. A spokesperson for Monero Outreach — an independent workgroup focused on XMR awareness and education — told Cointelegraph that the IRS should learn how Monero actually works instead. Monero Outreach’s representative emphasized that the crypto’s features in fact provide users with a certain level of transparency, stating: “$625,000 …