The custody rule change is currently a proposal, and is favorable for bank-custodians and thus positive for crypto custodians such as Anchorage, who have bank charters, and also custodians who operate under state charters, analysts Gautam Chhugani and Manas Agrawal wrote. Source
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged Terraform Labs and its CEO, Do Hyeong Kwon, with fraud, alleging that Kwon and his company orchestrated “a multibillion-dollar crypto-asset securities fraud.” The securities watchdog insists that Kwon raised billions from investors by creating an “interconnected suite of crypto-asset securities,” many of which were involved in unregistered transactions. SEC Charges Terra’s Do Kwon and Terraform Labs With Defrauding Investors Nine months after the entire Terra blockchain ecosystem collapsed, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the Singaporean company Terraform Labs…
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon for “orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud.” In a Feb. 16 statement, the SEC said Kwon and Terraform offered and sold an “inter-connected suite of crypto asset securities, many in unregistered transactions” pointing to its algorithmic stablecoin, TerraClassicUSD (USTC) and its connected cryptocurrency Terra Luna Classic (LUNC). In a statement, SEC Chair, Gary Gensler, said: “We allege that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with…
“Terraform and Kwon also misled investors about one of the most important aspects of Terraform’s offering – the stability of UST, the algorithmic ‘stablecoin’ purportedly pegged to the U.S. dollar,” the suit said. “UST’s price falling below its $1.00 ‘peg’ and not quickly being restored by the algorithm would spell doom for the entire Terraform ecosystem, given that UST and LUNA had no reserve of assets or any other backing.” Source
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wants to sue Paxos for issuing and listing stablecoin Binance USD (BUSD) to the benefit of its top-rival stablecoin Tether (USDT), whose market capitalization has risen to multi-month highs. BUSD market cap drops by $2 billion The SEC asserts that BUSD, a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin, is a security, noting that Paxos has violated investor protection laws by white-labeling it. Related: Paxos ‘categorically disagrees’ with the SEC that BUSD is a security Since Feb. 13 when the news broke, the BUSD market cap has lost…
When Gary Gensler (ex-Goldman Sachs investment banker) was announced as the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in February 2021, the crypto industry saw a glimpse of hope. After all, the man in charge of regulating the industry was a “crypto native,” having taught a course on the subject at MIT. However, two years later, it’s clear that Gary has been a big letdown for the industry as the SEC failed to identify major frauds and protect investors. The following opinion editorial was written by Joseph Collement,…
A five-member panel of the United States Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has voted 4-1 in favor of a proposal that may make it more difficult for cryptocurrency firms to serve as digital asset custodians in the future. The proposal, which is yet to be officially approved by the SEC, recommends amendments to the “2009 Custody Rule” will apply to custodians of “all assets” including cryptocurrencies, according to a Feb. 15 statement from SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. Gensler stated that currently, some crypto trading platforms that are offering custody services are not actual…
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler has proposed amending federal custody rules to cover “all crypto assets.” The SEC chief said: “Though some crypto trading and lending platforms may claim to custody investors’ crypto, that does not mean they are qualified custodians.” Gary Gensler Proposes Including Crypto in Expanded Custody Rules The chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, announced Wednesday that he has proposed changes to federal regulations “to expand and enhance the role of qualified custodians.” All asset classes, including crypto,…
“Anchorage Digital Bank, the first and only fully operational OCC-chartered digital asset bank, is unequivocally a ‘qualified custodian’,” said Georgia Quinn, the company’s general counsel, in a statement. “While Anchorage Digital would be largely unaffected by the proposed rule, we plan to work with all stakeholders to ensure any transition results in minimal disruption to the digital asset ecosystem.” Source
The settlement between Kraken (Payward Ventures) and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission set off alarm bells in the crypto community this month. Apparently, Kraken — one of the most compliance-minded crypto exchanges in existence — decided to buy its peace rather than fight with the SEC for years over whether it was offering unregistered “securities” through its staking program. The nature of the settlement is that Kraken neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s allegations, and the existence of the settlement, technically speaking, cannot be used as legal precedent…