Jaspreet Kalra

The U.S. Treasury Department’s proposed rules which would require users to comply with KYC requirements if they seek to send their crypto to a private wallet could end up being ineffective, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.  In its published response to the rule, Elliptic said that the rules could “adversely impact” the effectiveness of existing Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) regulations.  […]

Opyn, a marketplace for decentralized finance (DeFi) options, has rolled out new features in its updated protocol that aim to make the crypto options markets more efficient and liquid.  While Opyn entered DeFi with an insurance-like product for governance tokens such as Compound’s COMP, its focus has since pivoted to the options market in the digital asset space. According to Zubin Koticha, co-founder of Opyn, the […]

A South Florida federal district judge sentenced a Washington, D.C., man to six years in federal prison for operating a $25 million diamond investment scheme that included a crypto component. He must also pay over $23 million in victim restitution.  The accused, Jose Angel Aman, and his partners were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II of the Southern District of Florida for soliciting funds […]

Google Pay and Walmart’s PhonePe continue to dominate the digital payments sector in India built on the country’s United Payments Interface (UPI), a shared payments infrastructure initiated by the state and joined by 200 Indian banks.  According to data released by UPI’s governing body, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), Google Pay accounted for about 45% of UPI’s transaction volume and PhonePe came in second […]

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire believes the incoming Joe Biden presidential administration in the U.S. will “ultimately be supportive of cryptocurrency because it represents a seismic shift as large as the commercial internet.”  In a Monday interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Allaire spoke about how he thinks the incoming administration may regulate the emerging cryptocurrency and digital assets sector, and what may be in store for stablecoins. […]

The Libra Association may have rebranded itself as Diem but that means little to German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz.  According to a Reuters report, Scholz said in a statement that Libra’s rebranding as Diem was merely a cosmetic change.   “A wolf in sheep’s clothing is still a wolf,” he said following a video conference of G7 finance ministers on Monday. He added, “It is clear […]

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance will likely earn between $800 million and $1 billion this year, as market uncertainty drives interest – and trading – in cryptos, according to CEO Changpeng Zhao, Bloomberg reported. That’s up from about $570 million in 2019, according to the report. So far this year, the price of bitcoin (BTC), by far the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, has risen over 170% since the […]

Investors are hoping bitcoin becomes a “store of value” but the largest cryptocurrency is still very volatile, Tom Jessop, head of Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS), said during the Reuters Global Investment Outlook Summit 2020 on Thursday.  “We use the words ‘potential store of value’ as bitcoin is still extremely volatile, and by any standard perhaps would not achieve the mantle of a true store of value,” […]

With the holiday season approaching and cryptocurrencies led by bitcoin (BTC) surging in price, charities are warming to the opportunity to accept donations of the digital tender.  Slated for Dec. 1, the crypto rendition of the annual worldwide charity event #GivingTuesday  – #BitcoinTuesday – is back for another year, spearheaded by crypto donations platform The Giving Block.  According to the organization, while last year’s Bitcoin Tuesday […]

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has extradited the man accused of being one of the co-founders of the global cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme AirBit Club.  The Acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, said Monday the accused, Gutemberg Dos Santos, was extradited from Panama last week. Along with co-defendants he has been indicted on charges related to his alleged role in an […]

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has decided to discontinue sending customers 1099-Ks, the U.S. tax form which led the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to mistakenly think traders had underreported their gains.  The exchange will instead use the 1099-MISC form, at least for customers who earn interest on lending and similar products, it said in a Tuesday blog post, The post appeared to suggest that traders who do not […]

A subsidiary of SBI Holdings said it’s launched a service allowing users to ‘lend’ bitcoin to the firm and earn an interest at the rate of 1% annually in return. Source link

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio asked for and received a heaping dose of “radical candor” Tuesday when he said he’d “love to be corrected” on the negative views about bitcoin he expressed last week.  In a Twitter thread, the chairman of the world’s largest hedge fund said, “I might be missing something about Bitcoin so I’d love to be corrected.”  From arguments of privacy to bitcoin’s […]

Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming’s incoming U.S. senator, said in an interview Tuesday the key items on her agenda include working to reduce government debt and explaining bitcoin (BTC) to her colleagues when she is sworn in early next year.   Speaking to Fox News, Lummis, a Republican and a former member of the House of Representatives, said she believes bitcoin is a great store of value, and she […]

Tech giant IBM has been granted a patent on a blockchain-based consensus model envisioned for use in handling transactions within multiplayer games with a large user base.  The U.S. patent, titled “Gaming consensus protocol for blockchain,” was awarded last week and proposes the model of electing a subset of any game’s users to verify transactions, and then from within that subset choosing a leader to generate […]

David Silver, a securities fraud and investment loss attorney known for pursuing lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, has joined Coinfirm, the blockchain analytics and anti-money laundering platform company.  The London-based Coinfirm announced Silver’s appointment to its board of directors in the U.S. on Thursday, saying the co-founder of the Silver Miller law firm will help defrauded investors recover their wrongfully taken cryptocurrencies.  Source […]

Gary Gensler, a Washington and Wall Street veteran who has closely studied the budding cryptocurrency field, will lead the financial policy transition team for projected U.S. President-elect Joe Biden. A former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Gensler was tapped to lead the agency review team for the Federal Reserve, banking and securities regulators, the Biden campaign formally announced Tuesday, following reports last week […]

Two Beijing-area regional bodies – the Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration and the Tongzhou District government – held a conference Monday that made note of the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) Digital Currency Research Institute’s plan to build a legal digital currency test zone and digital financial system in China’s capital as part of the “China (Beijing) Pilot Free Trade Zone Overall Plan.” While plans […]

The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop Visa’s planned $5.3 billion acquisition of fintech firm Plaid, saying it violates antitrust laws and would eliminate competition in the online debit market.  Filed in a Northern California federal court, the lawsuit described Visa as a “monopolist” in online debit transactions and noted its proposed acquisition of Plaid violates both Section 2 of […]

Cryptocurrency exchange and finance platform Crypto.com, said Wednesday a third-party auditor has given it high ratings on privacy and security, based on a set of standards developed by a unit of the U.S. Department of Commerce.  According to Crypto.com, auditor SGS performed the assessment and found the platform has the highest rating, “Adaptive (Tier 4).”  Source link

PayPal’s decision last week to embrace crypto may help with mainstream adoption, but it could also mean additional tax work for users unfamiliar with the crypto landscape. Over the next few weeks PayPal will be rolling out buy, sell and hold features for cryptocurrencies on its platform to U.S. users, but the service will not allow users to withdraw or deposit holdings.  According to Internal Revenue […]

The central bank won’t pursue a CBDC for the duration of Governor Benjamin Diokno’s term, which ends in 2023. Source link

Villanova University’s College of Engineering is sending a private Ethereum blockchain into space to test whether distributed ledger technology (DLT) can help satellites exchange data.  Working in collaboration with the non-profit Teachers in Space, Villanova’s engineering school secured a flight for its blockchain on a Firefly Aerospace rocket slated for launch on Nov. 20 from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket will carry […]

Following a similar move by one of its rivals, popular cryptocurrency options exchange Deribit will require all of its users to be ID verified before the end of the year, according to a report by The Block.  The largest crypto options exchange by trading volume will ask its users to submit government-issued photo identification, such as a passport or driver’s license, as well as a proof […]