The United States Treasury Department has added Russia-based crypto mining services provider BitRiver and several subsidiaries as firms facilitating the evasion of sanctions. In a Wednesday announcement, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, said it was taking action against BitRiver AG as well as 10 of its Russia-based subsidiaries, naming the…
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Victoria McLoughlin, who has worked more than11 years at the Financial Conduct Authority, is temporarily heading the digital assets department of the United Kingdom’s financial watchdog. According to a Tuesday post on LinkedIn, McLoughlin assumed the position of interim head of the department of the regulator’s digital assets unit in April after serving as supervision…
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The United States Air Force has filed a trademark application hinting at the military branch potentially expanding into the metaverse. According to a Thursday application submitted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Department of the Air Force trademarked the word “SpaceVerse,” defined as “a secure digital metaverse that converges terrestrial and space physical…
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The Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, reported that many countries, including those with virtual asset service providers (VASPs), are not in compliance with its standards on Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). In a report released Tuesday on the “State of Effectiveness and Compliance with the FATF Standards,” the organization…
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Protect Our Future, a political action committee set up in January, with backers including FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, has spent more than $9 million to support candidates running for seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. According to expenditures reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission, as of April 14, Protect Our Future has used…
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Following the withdrawal of former Federal Reserve Board governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, United States President Joe Biden has announced his intention to nominate former Obama administration official and law professor Michael Barr as the central bank’s vice chair for supervision. In a Friday announcement, the White House said Barr was Biden’s pick to supervise the…
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Requests for comments on a proposal urging the Wikimedia Foundation to stop accepting donations in cryptocurrency have closed, with the majority of users voting in favor. According to a Tuesday update on the proposal, roughly 71%, or 232 out of 326, Wikimedia contributors who responded requested that the Wikimedia Foundation — the nonprofit that hosts…
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The China Banking Association, the China Internet Finance Association and the Securities Association of China issued a joint statement warning the public about the “hidden risks” of investing in nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. In a Wednesday notice, the three associations launched initiatives aimed at encouraging innovation in the crypto and blockchain space focused on NFTs…
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Bertrand Perez, chief operations officer of the Web3 Foundation, one of the firms behind the Polkadot blockchain, said a certain level of regulation was necessary in the crypto space as long as those responsible left room for innovation. Speaking to Cointelegraph at the Paris Blockchain Week on Wednesday, Perez said he saw a few areas…
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While the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has yet to approve a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, a recent Nasdaq survey suggested that the offering could lead to greater adoption of crypto among financial advisers. According to the results of a Nasdaq survey released on Monday, 72% of 500 financial advisers would be more…
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