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In some of her first remarks on the subject of digital assets since Senate confirmation, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sounded an alarm on Bitcoin. In an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, Secretary Yellen described Bitcoin as frequently used “for illicit finance” and “an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions.”…
Continue Reading Treasury Secretary Skeptical of Bitcoin

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control settled with BitPay, Inc. for $507,375 to resolve 2,102 apparent violations of multiple US sanctions programs for allowing individuals located in sanctioned jurisdictions to use digital currency on its platform to transact with merchants in the United States and elsewhere.…
Continue Reading OFAC Settles with Digital Currency Services Provider for Apparent Violations of Multiple Sanctions Programs

In the past week, Canadian securities regulators approved the offering of the first two Canadian Bitcoin ETFs. By holding Bitcoin, the Canadian funds intend to provide investors with access to the US dollar and Canadian dollar price of Bitcoin through an ETF structure. The ETF units have been conditionally approved for listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.…
Continue Reading Two Bitcoin ETFs Approved for Sale in Canada

As has been widely reported, President Biden has nominated Gary Gensler to be the next chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The former CFTC chairman under President Obama, Gensler currently teaches courses on blockchain and digital assets at MIT. What should the crypto community expect of Mr. Gensler as SEC chair?…
Continue Reading President Biden’s Nominee for SEC Chairman: What Does It Mean for Crypto?

Amid the rise of digital currency services, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control published a cautionary tale on December 30, 2020, discussing a recent settlement with BitGo, Inc., a California-based technology company that facilitates digital currency transactions and provides non-custodial digital wallet management services.…
Continue Reading OFAC Settlement Highlights Risks for Those Dealing in Digital Currencies

The President’s Working Group (PWG), a federal interagency working group of financial regulators established by Executive Order in 1988, has issued a statement outlining key regulatory and supervisory considerations related to stablecoins and digital payment systems. Beginning with a declaration that the United States encourages responsible payments innovation, the statement outlines various high-level regulatory principles that participants in stablecoin arrangements need to account for.…
Continue Reading Designing Stablecoins: Federal Regulators Issue Statement Highlighting Key Regulatory and Supervisory Considerations

Newly-proposed federal legislation would require all issuers of stablecoins and certain other digital asset companies to obtain a bank charter as a condition to operation. Referred to as the Stablecoin Tethering and Bank Licensing Enforcement Act, the draft legislation is intended to shift certain digital currency activities into the regulated banking framework.…
Continue Reading New Legislation Proposes to Merge Crypto and Banking