The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day |
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As crypto colossus Tether comes under renewed scrutiny, CEO Paolo Ardoino told CoinDesk that the company respects international sanctions and works closely with law enforcement, but acknowledged it is ultimately at the mercy of U.S. authorities. "If the U.S. wanted to kill us, they can press a button and kill us anywhere," Ardoino said. "We are not going to fight the U.S." "We may not be the best in presenting ourselves, but what matters is that we onboarded the FBI" to Tether's compliance systems, he added. "We onboarded the U.S. Secret Service. We have thank-you letters from the DOJ … We think we are doing, you know, the best we can." CoinDesk interviewed Ardoino at the Plan B conference on Friday hours before The Wall Street Journal published an article alleging that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is conducting a criminal investigation of Tether for possible violations of sanctions and anti-money-laundering laws. Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptos dipped on the report. Ardoino later posted on X he had seen "no indication that Tether is under investigation," and Tether called the Journal story "wildly irresponsible." |
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Announcing the ftNFT YoCerebrum Awards Volume 3: Eden of Innovation and Creativity!
On Nov. 14, Malta will host this prestigious event, honoring top NFT talents across 15 categories, including NFT Project of the Year and Best Phygital NFT. Submissions are open until Oct. 31, with blockchain voting from Nov. 1-5. Winners will be announced at Fort Manoel and will receive 2024 Fasttokens (FTN) as a prize.
Don’t miss this opportunity to celebrate creativity and innovation in the NFT space!
For more information and nominations, visit: ftNFT Awards Website. |
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Dogecoin and Bitcoin Surge |
Bitcoin (BTC) rose to a three-month high on Monday, approaching the $70,000 level and moving to within about 5% of its record high of $73,700 from last March. BTC advanced 3% over the past 24 hours, changing hands at $69,800, while the CoinDesk 20 Index, which tracks the performance of 20 large-cap tokens, managed a more modest 1% gain during the same period. Ethereum's ether (ETH) was up 0.5%, while native tokens of Polygon (POL), Near (NEAR) and Hedera (HBAR) dragged the index lower. It was dogecoin } that defied the broadly lagging altcoin market, surging 10% during the day, as the token attracted trader attention after being mentioned during a Donald Trump campaign event on Sunday. The largest and oldest market cap canine-themed crypto has been closely associated with Trump lately after Elon Musk, who has been increasingly involved with the Republican candidate's campaign, proposed the “Department of Government Efficiency,” abbreviated to D.O.G.E., focused on reining in U.S. government spending. Excitement rose a bit further as Musk, following his appearance at the Trump rally, tweeted a meme of himself with the DOGE avatar. |
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The First 40+ Speakers Announced for Consensus Hong Kong The industry's most influential event in Web3 and digital assets is coming to Asia with a stellar lineup of 40+ global thought leaders already confirmed. Be part of the game-changing discussions, key announcements, and high-impact deals that will shape the future of innovation.
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Arctic Mine Heats Village |
A bitcoin (BTC) mine is coming to the Arctic Circle. The 350-square-meter facility, conceived by retail-oriented bitcoin mining firm Sazmining, will be located in a small fishing village on the coast of Norway. Once it goes live on Dec. 1, it may well become the northernmost mining operation in the world. The big idea? To remove the old oil boiler used by one of the town's largest buildings, replace it with an in-house bitcoin-centric data center and warm the edifice using the tremendous heat produced by the mining rigs. "Heat is a really critical resource in this region of the world," Kent Halliburton, the CEO of Sazmining, told CoinDesk in an interview. "It's minus 20 degrees Celsius for large portions of the year. … A portion of the heat [from the machines] is actually going to be shunted off to dry fish, which is part of the economy there." While Halliburton did not wish to publicize the facility's exact location before it went live, he said the project aimed to showcase the possibilities offered by bitcoin mining to other Arctic residents. "For the locals, it's kind of like, you need to see it to believe it," Halliburton said. "This will be helpful for them to understand that it's not bleeding edge technology, but it's pretty tested and it can be deployed now." "There are multiple business owners in the community already considering this approach," he added. |
As MiCA Looms, Fastex Pushes for Regulatory Compliance What are the three biggest crypto trends of 2024? You could argue the top three trends are regulation, regulation, and regulation. The “Wild West” is no more. Europe’s MiCA framework will soon go into effect. Debates over crypto regulation have spilled into the U.S. presidential election. And one Web3 company is traveling across the globe — quite literally — to show leadership in regulatory compliance: Fastex. Continue reading here. |
HK Opens Door to Regulated Exchanges |
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) plans to create a consultative panel for licensed cryptocurrency exchanges in the city next year, said Eric Yip, the SFC’s Executive Director, Intermediaries. Speaking at Hong Kong Fintech Week on Oct. 28, Yip said the panel will include representatives from each licensed exchange and would build community transparency and shared responsibility among licensees. “We expect the panel deliberation will result in a comprehensive virtual assets white paper that outlines the development roadmap for products and services, as well as potential enhancement in compliance and risk management,” he said. The move will be part of the city’s effort to establish a comprehensive framework for digital assets, which includes upcoming legislation for OTC trading and stablecoins. Earlier this year, Hong Kong brought in a new licensing regime for virtual asset trading platforms. Three are currently licensed in the city and Yip said the SFC was currently processing the application of another 14, 11 of which have pre-existing businesses in Hong Kong. He added that he expected more licenses to be granted by the end of this year. But Yip also cautioned that while virtual assets were at the forefront of the agenda for financial regulators globally, investors still need to be protected through regulation and education. In the first half of this year, HK$1.5 billion ($193 million) was lost to investment fraud in the city, while fraud and scams accounted for almost half of reported crimes, according to a police statement. It did not publish results on how many of these cases involved cryptocurrency but figures from 2023 show that crypto-related fraud accounted for more than half of investment fraud losses. “At the SFC, we firmly believe the future of virtual assets lies in a regulated marketplace that balances its development with investor protection. We do not need to reinvent too many wheels, as our experience in securities regulation lays a strong foundation,” Yip said. |
The Takeaway: A Hard Fork For Regulation |
By Mike Selig At the heart of every blockchain network is a “consensus mechanism,” or system of rules designed to align participants in updating the network’s state. From time to time, participants must opt in to a modification to these rules, known as “hard fork,” or else remain on a legacy version of the network. With a change in administration forthcoming, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has an opportunity to institute a hard fork of its own with respect to its approach to crypto regulation. Although legislation is necessary to establish a fulsome legal framework for crypto, the SEC can abandon its regulation-by-enforcement playbook in favor of a pro-innovation regulatory framework that scales to accommodate novel markets. We need a hard fork in crypto regulation to address four key pain points: Issuance Every offer or sale of a security must be registered with the SEC, absent an exemption. This raises two problems for crypto asset issuers. First, it is unclear whether any given crypto asset is a security. Second, the current registration process and issuer-specific exemptions are onerous and incompatible with the characteristics of many crypto asset offerings. The term “security” is defined to include, among other things, any stock, note, bond or investment contract. Federal courts have consistently held that crypto assets, in and of themselves, are not securities, but may be sold as the object of an investment contract security. Of course, instruments such as common stock and warrants are securities whether issued in tokenized form or not. But the most widely traded crypto assets more closely resemble currencies, trading cards and other commodities that ordinarily fall outside of the security definition. Issuers of crypto assets have addressed the risk of inadvertently violating the registration requirement by relying on various registration exemptions when engaging in offerings of crypto assets that may constitute investment contracts. However, the SEC has sued many such issuers for alleged violations of the registration requirement under the theory that the crypto assets sold as the object of an investment contract inherit the investment contract’s security status. There is no legal precedent to support this viral theory of security status, which would make many ordinary commodities sold in the stream of commerce into securities. A new administration can eliminate this regulatory friction for issuers by clarifying that crypto assets sold as the object of an investment contract that do not independently qualify as a security are not subject to the registration requirement. Issuers of crypto assets that do meet the definition of a security today face the false choice of filing a registration statement or relying upon an exemption from registration. Although SEC Chair Gary Gensler has said that such issuers need only fill out “a form on our website,” the registration process is designed for massive companies under centralized management seeking to go public rather than teams of software developers intending to exit to a decentralized community. The SEC should evaluate whether reforms to the registration process are necessary and appropriate to accommodate crypto asset issuers, as it has done in the past for asset-backed security issuers. Additionally, the SEC has broad authority to exempt certain activities, products and transactions from the registration requirement if necessary or appropriate in the public interest. It should use this authority to propose additional registration exemptions for crypto-native methods of distribution, such as offerings to technologically sophisticated protocol users, validator operators, play-to-earn gamers and testnet participants. Finally, the SEC should propose a “safe harbor” from the registration requirement for airdrops. It is well-understood that a distribution of a security is not a “sale” if the recipient of the security does not individually bargain to contribute cash or other tangible or definable consideration to the distributor in exchange for the security. However, the SEC has nonetheless characterized airdrops as subject to the registration requirement. The SEC should codify certain conditions that airdrops can satisfy to be safe harbored from constituting “sales.” Read the rest. |
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