US House financial committee tells SEC they don’t like custody proposal

The chair of the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee and six subcommittee chairs have sent a letter to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Secretary Vanessa Countryman voicing their concerns over the agency’s proposed advisory clients custody rule. They join a string of crypto industry figures in expressing their objections. Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry and his colleagues wrote that the SEC was exceeding its authority in its proposed rule, known as the registered investment adviser (RIA) rule — which toughens requirements for qualified custodians of…

Federal Reserve’s FedNow will integrate with Metal Blockchain

The Federal Reserve’s forthcoming instant payment service FedNow will be integrated with Metal Blockchain, according to a May 11 announcement from the Metal Blockchain team. The announcement said that the integration will allow Metal users to instantly convert funds to stablecoin and back again using FedNow’s “send/receive” function. Metal Blockchain’s listing in the FedNow Service Provider Showcase. Source: FedNow FedNow is an instant payment system developed by the United States Federal Reserve. It allows for round-the-clock, near-instant payments between banks. Currently, U.S. residents can only make instant payments domestically through…

BlockFi users to get back $297M from Wallet accounts: Report

A United States judge has granted permission to bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi to return $297 million to customers with deposits held in its Wallet program, Reuters reported on May 11.  The return of funds does not apply to users of interest-bearing accounts (BIA). According to bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan, funds in BIA accounts were used by BlockFi for its lending business and therefore are property of the bankruptcy estates. This means the funds will be later used to repay all creditors. The Wallet program, in contrast, did not pay interest…

Donald Trump Urges Republicans to Let US Default on Debt if Democrats Don’t Agree to Spending Cuts – Economics Bitcoin News

Former U.S. President Donald Trump has urged Republican lawmakers to let the U.S. default on its debt obligations if the Democrats do not agree on “massive” spending cuts. Trump, who is also running for president in 2024, stressed that letting the U.S. default is “better than what we’re doing right now because we’re spending money like drunken sailors.” Donald Trump’s Advice on U.S. Default Former President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has advised Republican lawmakers to let the United States default on its debt obligations if Democrats do…

BlockGPT launches ‘chat to earn’ ecosystem for training AI

BlockGPT, a recently-launched Web3 company, announced the launch of its ‘chat to earn’ artificial intelligence (AI) service and related blockchain ecosystem on May 11.  According to the company, BlockGPT aims to create a decentralized, token-governed chatbot on the blockchain with similar functionality to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. $BGPT is not the only token in #BlockGPT ecosystem. We’re excited to introduce $AIBGPT, a free airdrop token belonging to the BlockGPT community. It has a total supply of 10,000,000,000,000. But act fastit’s first come, first serve! Threads#AI #Airdrop #memecoins #BNB pic.twitter.com/j03IeT0gVY — BlockGPT BSC…

Safaricom M-Pesa receives Ethiopian mobile money license, ending state monopoly

The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has issued a mobile money-service license to Safaricom M-Pesa Mobile Financial Service, it announced May 11. Previously, only Telebirr, part of the state-owned Ethio Telecom network, operated in that market. Kenya-based Safaricom was also the first company to break Ethio Telecom’s monopoly on Ethiopian mobile phone service in October, through its Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia subsidiary. The NBE introduced legislation into the Parliamentary Assembly earlier in 2022 to make the private service possible. Big news! We have received a license from @NBEthiopia to provide mobile…

Elon Musk announces he will step down as Twitter CEO

Twitter chief executive officer Elon Musk has announced that he will be transitioning to executive chair and chief technology officer of the social media platform in roughly six weeks. In a May 11 tweet, Musk said he hired a new CEO for X Corp. — Twitter’s parent company — who will likely replace him starting in late June or early July. The unnamed woman will follow Musk, who took over the social media platform in October 2022 after completing a $44-billion acquisition. According to the soon-to-be former CEO, he will become…

Bitcoin BTC Price Edges Below $27K as Latest Bank Crisis Fails to Trigger Price Increase

The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading at around $26,950, down over 3% in the past 24 hours. BTC had been hovering above $27,000 Thursday morning before dropping below the threshold around 1 p.m. ET. BTC has been trending downward for much of the past week as investors look for a new price catalyst. Bitcoin fell below $27,000 on Wednesday for the first time since March, regained the threshold before falling again. Source