Browsing: Policy

Australian Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg has released a draft of a new bill aimed at cracking down on digital asset exchanges, stablecoins and the e-Yuan, China’s central bank digital currency.

In a Sept. 18 statement, Bragg said Australia must keep pace with the global digital asset regulation race as parliament must push through legal reforms.

The new draft bill, called the Digital Assets (Market Regulation) Act 2022, requires the introduction of digital asset exchanges, digital asset custody services, licenses for stablecoin issuers, and disclosure requirements for Australian e-Yuan service providers.

BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes published a new blog post exploring the impact of dollar liquidity on the crypto market. Arthur believes that the real dollar total, that is, dollar liquidity, is a more direct factor affecting the price of the crypto market than the dollar interest rate.

Arthur mentioned that in addition to US dollar interest, the reverse repurchase (RRP) held by the New York Fed and the general account of the US Treasury (TGA) are also means of regulating the total dollar volume. Although the Fed has been raising interest rates recently, the latter two indicators It shows that the other hand is increasing dollar liquidity.

Arthur speculates that with the midterm elections approaching, the ruling body has an incentive to promote short-term economic conditions, on the one hand, maintaining interest rate hikes to create an image of fighting inflation to ordinary voters, and at the same time no longer tightening liquidity to protect the interests of supporters behind the election.

Cryptocurrency platform Crypto.com has announced that it has signed a pre-registration commitment with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in Canada.

Crypto.com becomes the first global cryptocurrency platform currently operating in Canada. Under the terms of the relevant agreement, Crypto.com has agreed to cooperate with OSC to provide various products and services that are fully compliant with relevant Canadian regulations.

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek noted: “Compliance underscores everything we do at Crypto.com. The North American market, and Canada in particular, represents an important potential growth area for the cryptocurrency market.”

Recently, the Dubai Digital Economy Chamber announced the establishment of the Dubai Digital Assets Business Group (D2A2). According to the Emirates News Agency (WAM), the group will focus on strengthening the role of the digital asset industry in the economic development of the United Arab Emirates and the entire Middle East region.

Its mandate also includes strengthening the commercial infrastructure to support the development of digital assets in the emirate of Dubai.

Omar bin Sultan Al Olama, UAE Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy and Teleworking Applications, commented that the establishment of D2A2 is in line with the Dubai Digital Economy Chamber’s strategy to accelerate the growth of the emirate’s digital economy.

Unionbank of the Philippines has announced that it will soon launch a cryptocurrency service for its clients.

The financial institution will offer select users of its mobile app the option to exchange bitcoin and other digital currencies without the need for a third-party wallet. Union Bank of the Philippines is working to become the first universal bank in the country to facilitate cryptocurrency exchanges in its mobile app.

“We recognize that cryptocurrency is already one of the services that many customers are looking for, especially the younger generation, and this demand has been accelerated by the pandemic,” said Cathy Casas, head of the bank.

Additionally, Union Bank said the new transaction functionality will initially be available to randomly pre-selected users of the banking app, but it aims to roll out more broadly in the near future.

The Indian law enforcement agency (Enforcement Directorate, ED) is conducting anti-money laundering investigations into at least 10 cryptocurrency exchanges involving about $130 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

People familiar with the matter said that when law enforcement agencies investigated the WazirX case, they found similar suspicious transactions on other trading platforms, that is, many KYC information on the trading platform was suspected of being fake.

South Korea’s ruling party and financial authorities will hold a Korea-US-EU Global Policy Conference on Digital Assets with U.S. and European Union officials on Aug. 11 at the South Korean National Assembly to discuss crypto-asset-related legislation.

Sung Il-jong, Chairman of the National Power Policy Committee of the ruling party of South Korea, Kim Yong-duo, Director of the Digital Finance Innovation Bureau of the Korea Financial Supervisory Service, Caroline Palm, a permanent member of the CFTC of the United States, and Peter Culstons, an advisor to the European Commission, will attend the meeting.

It is reported that South Korea currently has 13 bills related to virtual assets pending in the National Assembly. Earlier yesterday, Kim Joo-hyun, chairman of the Korean Financial Services Commission, announced that the Financial Services Institute (FIU) of the Korean Financial Services Commission will strengthen the inspection and supervision of virtual asset (cryptocurrency) operators.

U.S. House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters, along with other congressmen including Joyce Beatty, sent a letter to 20 U.S. cryptocurrency companies urging them to provide more information on their inclusion practices.

The letter to the companies included a questionnaire asking crypto companies to describe what diversity and inclusion practices they had implemented in the last year.

It is reported that the 20 cryptocurrency companies include Coinbase, FTX, Binance.US, AAVE, etc. The deadline to reply to this letter is September 2.

The Central Bank of Honduras issued a press release aimed at clarifying the agency’s stance on the use of cryptocurrencies in the country. Even if such tools gain popularity in other countries, cryptocurrencies are not backed by any form and are also subject to high volatility, the group said.

“Any transaction with them will be at the responsibility and risk of the person who executes the transaction.” In addition, the organization informed that under the country’s law, the only institution authorized to issue currency and guarantee the existence of an effective payment system is the Central Bank of Honduras. Earlier news, Honduras established a bitcoin center to promote the use of Bitcoin.

According to a report published by the European Central Bank, regulators should limit the use of the digital euro by Europeans to prevent capital flight from deposits in commercial banks. The report was written by a team of experts led by ECB economist Frank Smets.

The authors believe that the optimal amount of digital euros in circulation should be between 15% and 45% of the euro area’s quarterly real gross domestic product (GDP). This is similar to a previous proposal.

European Central Bank board member Fabio Panetta has pointed out that keeping digital euro holdings between 1 and 1.5 trillion euros helps avoid potential negative effects on the European financial system and monetary policy. He also noted that this total is comparable to the current holdings of banknotes in circulation. As the population of euro zone countries is currently around 340 million, this would allow for holdings of 3,000 to 4,000 digital euros per person.

A U.S. bill aimed at boosting computer chip manufacturing is headed to President Biden that would also create a crypto advisory role within his administration.

After a House vote on Thursday, bipartisan legislation passed both houses of Congress to create a new advisor on blockchain and cryptocurrency issues who will work in the Office of Technology Policy.

Congressional Blockchain Caucus co-chair, cryptocurrency proponent, Rep. Darren Soto said, “I’m proud to enact the policies necessary to ensure our government continues to shape innovation.

The White House Office of Science, directed by the President’s executive order on encryption, analyzes the impact of digital assets on climate change and will submit a report later this year. The office sought public comment on the report in March.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore stated that the stability and integrity of the cryptocurrency market are the focus of market supervision. It also said there are no plans to retail central bank digital currencies.

Huobi has received provisional approval from the Dubai Virtual Assets Authority. The provisional approval allows Huobi to offer virtual asset trading products and services to pre-qualified investors and professional financial service providers.

U.S. Senate candidate Bryan Solstin said on social media that central bank talking points: Deflation is bad, inflation reality, homelessness is increasing.

We can eliminate inflation with Bitcoin, he said.

Money markets are scrambling to bet that the ECB’s tightening will end by the end of the year, but Danske Bank’s chief strategist sees the possibility that the ECB will stop raising interest rates after September.

Perhaps the European Central Bank realized it might not have a long window to raise rates, the strategist said in an analysis of Thursday’s surprise 50 basis point rate hike, prompting the ECB to raise rates sharply ahead of schedule.

There is even a risk that the ECB will raise rates by another 50 basis points in September before pausing. Swap contracts linked to the date of the ECB meeting showed traders betting on a 47 basis point rate hike by the European Central Bank in September and a cumulative 113 basis points by the end of the year, while expectations for a 25 basis point hike in 2023 have not yet been priced in. middle.

The Republican Party platform in Texas calls for a provision in the state’s bill of rights that would allow citizens to own, hold and use any medium of exchange of their choice, including digital currencies.

Many Republican officials in the state are eager to secure Texas’ status as a cryptocurrency hub, even as some lawmakers worry that the industry could overburden an already strained grid.

Republican Senator Tom Emmer of Minnesota released a video showing his remarks before the House Financial Services Committee, accusing the SEC of politicizing regulation. He went on to cross-examine SEC Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal about the SEC’s unethical industry sweep of cryptocurrency companies.

Grewal admitted to taking enforcement action against companies outside his jurisdiction. Emmer said the SEC is using its law enforcement arm to unconstitutionally expand its crypto jurisdiction.

Emmer also accused SEC Chairman Garry Gensler of luring and threatening companies, saying: “Under Chairman Gensler, the SEC has become a power-hungry regulator, politicizing enforcement, enticing companies to ‘come in and talk to the committee’ and then take Enforcement action hits them and hinders good faith cooperation.”

The new UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Nadhim Zahawi said the government will explore blockchain for government bonds. Plans to explore blockchain were first mentioned in April, when the U.K. published documents on the use of DLT for securities and stablecoin regulation.

Bonds are one of the top asset classes where DLT is being deployed or explored. And, this applies not only to regular bonds, but also to green bonds, where the use of bond proceeds can be tracked and verified using blockchain.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Centre is working with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority to explore the use of blockchain for green bonds.

Kazakhstan’s President Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has signed a bill to amend the country’s tax code to impose higher tax rates on crypto miners.

The amount of the tax will depend on the amount of electricity used and the average electricity price when mining digital currencies such as Bitcoin.

Patrick Hansen, a crypto venture capital advisor at Presight Capital, said on social media that the ECB is inviting technologists for technical talks.

Discuss design options for CBDC, with the focus on the application of privacy-enhancing technologies in retail payment settlements. The application deadline is July 20.