Month: July 2023

UK won’t regulate cryptocurrencies as a form of gambling

Britain’s Financial Services Minister Andrew Griffith stated on Thursday that classifying crypto assets as a form of gambling would create discord with global and European Union regulators. This statement was a response to the Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee’s report in May, which recommended regulating “unbacked” cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether as gambling due to the risks they pose to consumers. UK regulators take a balanced approach Amid concerns raised by lawmakers, British regulators have warned investors about the potential risks associated with crypto investments, cautioning that consumers might mistakenly perceive the sector…

OpenAI launches ‘custom instructions’ for ChatGPT so users don’t have to repeat themselves in every prompt

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OpenAI announced the beta launch of “custom instructions” for ChatGPT on July 20. The much-requested feature will allow users to create a preface for their prompts featuring instructions for the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to consider before responding to queries.  According to a company blog post, the feature works across prompts and sessions and includes support for plugins. As is typically the case, OpenAI’s launching the new feature in beta, citing the increased potential for unexpected outputs: “Especially during the beta period, ChatGPT won’t always interpret custom instructions perfectly —…

UK FCA to introduce permanent digital sandbox for technology startups

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will introduce a Digital Sandbox to support technology firms during their early product development stages. The initiative will be permanently available from August 1 and will support emerging technologies such as blockchain in the financial sector. FCA introduces permanent digital sandbox The Digital Sandbox, serving as a testing ground, provides crucial support to firms in their initial product development stages, facilitating experimentation through proof of concepts. Besides innovators, data providers are now invited to seek listing on the permanent sandbox, granting them access to…

Here’s What It Takes To Get Listed on Kraken, According to the Crypto Exchange’s Chief Legal Officer

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Kraken’s chief legal officer Marco Santori says crypto assets on his exchange undergo a multi-pronged compliance, cybersecurity and legal review process before being listed for trading. Santori explains in a new interview with Real Vision Crypto that Kraken weeds through thousands of crypto assets and chooses to support “only a few” tokens. “We do that via a few different methods. One is, of course, the business case. Do we believe there’s actual interest from our users in this asset? Once that has been established — and that, by far, is…

FTX sues over investments, donations made by charity arm to life sciences companies

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FTX’s efforts to claw back customer funds are continuing. Alameda Research and FTX filed suit on July 19 seeking the return of $71.6 million in allegedly commingled corporate and customer funds related to investments and donations to life sciences companies. The defendants in the suit are six life sciences companies, the FTX Foundation philanthropical organization, the Latona Biosciences Group “sham” nonprofit, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX Foundation head Nicholas Beckstead and Latona head Ross Rheingans-Yoo. The suit claims that the FTX Foundation and Latona donated or invested funds in…

Former Binance​.US CEO joins Hashdex board

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Brian Brooks, former acting comptroller of the currency for the United States government, has joined the board of directors for crypto-focused asset manager Hashdex. In a July 20 announcement, Hashdex said Brooks had become the fifth member of its board and will serve as a strategic adviser to the firm. Brooks was the chief legal officer of Coinbase from 2018 to 2020, served as acting comptroller of the currency from 2020 to 2021, worked as the CEO of Binance.US for roughly four months and was the CEO of Bitfury from…

Possible identities of AnubisDAO rug pull suspects revealed

Two years ago, AnubisDAO was rug-pulled for about $60 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) and funds were never recovered. However, the blockchain never forgets and block analysts have been keeping an eye on Anubis exploiter wallets. New on-chain analysis by ZachXBT may have revealed who the scammers are. Deeper analysis reveals possible identity of exploiters An analysis done by ZachXBT, an on-chain analyst, shows that the funds ended up in two exchange deposit addresses. These addresses are 0x51da686c7a2f973ad11fafed6ce9a3ffc020349f, herein marked as (1) and 0x253d7ba533b7d13720fb5ec5a7d1e64d4ff3f58b, herein labeled as (2). 1/ Here…