Regulation

FTX US – one of the United States’ leading cryptocurrency exchanges – has received a cease and desist order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The regulator has accused the exchange of making false and misleading claims about its customers’ FDIC coverage.  In the letter issued on Thursday, the FDIC took issue with claims made by FTX US President Brett Harrison on Twitter.  Harrison claimed that when employers make direct deposits to FTX US, they are stored in FDIC-insured…

Celsius boss Alex Mashinsky may be largely responsible for many of the firm’s unprofitable trades leading up to its bankruptcy.  A new report from the Financial Times (FT) suggests that the CEO may have taken over trading operations back in January. He then took actions with company funds that overruled the decisions of other executives with multiple years of finance experience.  Mashinsky’s Massive Trades The latest info is according to multiple people familiar with the matter – though the information…

The DAO website for sanctioned crypto mixer Tornado Cash appears to no longer be operational. According to social media reports, this is also true for the platform’s Discord server. DAO Website Stops Going Through Earlier this week, the United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control imposed a sanction on the Ethereum-based protocol. Since then, the platform has seen some of its resources become inaccessible. Additionally, various entities have begun distancing themselves from Tornado Cash’s services. Hence, the platform’s…

Earlier this week, Netherlands’ financial watchdog the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) took a 29-year-old developer into custody. The FIOD carried out the arrest in Amsterdam due to suspicions of his involvement in money laundering operations using crypto mixer Tornado Cash. Tornado Cash Facilitating Crypto Crimes The arrest comes shortly after the US Department of Treasury announced sanctions against the privacy protocol. In a release, the Treasury cited Tornado Cash’s role in various crypto crimes since its inception in…

Major exchange Binance appears unbothered by the stiff opposition it has received in its bid to expand to the Philippines. In a recent interview, the company’s Asia-Pacific executive Leon Foong expressed their eagerness to start operations in the region.  Binance Isn’t Focused on “Lobbying Bodies” Earlier this month, the Philippine Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) issued a warning about Binance to the public. The regulators advised residents against using the platform’s services. This came as a response to complaints from policy…

Following heated attention on Tornado Cash this week, the Ethereum founder spoke on the mixer’s recent sanction, revealing he used the blacklisted mixer not long ago. Tornado cash is a decentralized protocol that provides users with a platform to perform untraceable transactions. The protocol, built on the Ethereum blockchain, is a transaction mixer that hides and deletes links between transacting accounts. This makes it impossible for transactions performed through it to be traceable, giving its users full anonymity. Vitalik Prompts…

New York Attorney General Letitia James is pushing for investors to blow the whistle on crypto companies they consider deceiving or misconducting. The AG's intervention comes after a series of debacles that led to people losing their crypto investments. Projects like Terra, Celsius, Voyager, Anchor, and Stablegains have crashed, affecting millions of investors in the process. James believes people have the power to prevent such losses by signaling suspicious activities in crypto projects they support. In a recent tweet, she…

Tornado Cash is the latest crypto mixer to join the US Department of Treasury’s list of sanctioned organizations. The Department shared the news in a press release on Monday alongside other details of the sanction. In its release, the US Treasury highlighted Tornado Cash’s role in several stolen crypto launders as its primary reason for the sanction. Tornado Cash and Cybercrime Tornado Cash is the second service platform to have received a sanction from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets…

On Tuesday, the European Central Bank (ECB) released the results of a study examining the ideal model for cross-border payments. According to the paper, next to options such as Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins, CBDCs come out on top. ECB Pursues the "Holy Grail" While Bitcoin and other crypto solutions have been touted as excellent options for cross-border payments, the European Central Bank thinks otherwise. In fact, the ECB thinks a rather perfect solution would possess some particular attributes they believe…