Author: Reuters
Consumers risk losing all their money invested in cryptoassets and could fall prey to scams, the European Union’s securities, banking and insurance watchdogs said in a joint statement on Thursday. “Consumers face the very real possibility of losing all their invested money if they buy these assets,” the three EU authorities said in a statement. It marks a racheting up of direct warnings to consumers about cryptoassets by EU authorities, spelling out that consumers have no protections or recourse to compensation under existing EU financial services law. Regulators are increasingly worried that more consumers are buying 17,000 different cryptoassets, including…
Unlike payment companies, most crypto exchanges have rejected calls to cut off all Russian users, sparking concerns among European officials and U.S. lawmakers that digital assets could be used to circumvent sanctions the United States and Europe have piled on Moscow in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine. Cryptocurrency exchanges are risking long-term damage to their industry for remaining in Russia as Western governments seek to isolate Moscow, the head of the London Stock Exchange Group said on Wednesday, calling it a “watershed moment.” Unlike payment companies, most crypto exchanges have rejected calls to cut off all Russian users,…
Global investors are scooping up stakes in cryptocurrency funds and companies, as they seek exposure to a sector many believe could withstand the fallout from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Research firm Fundstrat, in its latest note to clients, said venture capital (VC) buyers invested around $4 billion in the crypto space in the last three weeks of February. VCs poured in another $400 million to start-ups in the sector last week, data showed. The VC investment is consistent with broad weekly inflows. Since the beginning of the year, weekly investments in the industry have been averaging anywhere between $800 million to…
Bitcoin loves flirting with the mainstream. But now, as the U.S. president says he wants to get serious, it may be getting cold crypto feet. When Joe Biden ordered officials to prepare reports on the role of cryptocurrencies in future finance last Wednesday, bitcoin leapt as much as 9% and ether 8%, as many crypto fans hailed a potential milestone in mainstream acceptance. “The real importance of it is that the president of the United States is talking about crypto,” said Jack McDonald, CEO of Standard Custody, a firm handling digital asset custody solutions for institutional investors. Yet cryptocurrencies are…
In a ravine deep in the Appalachian mountains, Warren Rogers stands on the ruins of an abandoned coal-washing plant that used to prepare hundreds of tons of the fuel a day for transport through the tiny town of Belfry, Kentucky. His construction crews have been putting in 10 to 12-hour shifts through the winter, retrofitting the old site to power a new kind of extractive operation: mining the digital currency bitcoin. “We’re trying to digitize coal,” said Rogers, the chief strategy officer of Blockware Solutions, a bitcoin mining giant that is expanding rapidly in eastern Kentucky. Over the past year…
Japanese authorities ordered crypto exchanges on Monday not to process transactions involving crypto assets subject to asset-freeze sanctions against Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine. The step was taken after a Group of Seven (G7) statement on Friday that said Western nations “will impose costs on illicit Russian actors using digital assets to enhance and transfer their wealth.” There are growing concerns among G7 advanced economies that cryptocurrencies are being used by Russian entities as a loophole for financial sanctions imposed upon the country for invading Ukraine. The U.S. Treasury Department issued new guidance on Friday that required…
Crypto firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are being deluged with requests to liquidate billions of dollars of virtual currency as Russians seek a safe haven for their fortunes, company executives and financial sources said. Some clients are using cryptocurrency to invest in real estate in the UAE, while others want to use firms there to turn their virtual money into hard currency and stash it elsewhere, the sources said One crypto firm has received lots of queries in the past 10 days from Swiss brokers asking to liquidate billions of dollars of bitcoin because their clients are afraid…
El Salvador is looking for the right timing to launch a bitcoin-backed bond, which could happen between March 15 and 20 but may depend on the war in Ukraine, the Central American nation’s finance minister Alejandro Zelaya said on Friday. President Nayib Bukele aims to issue his country’s first-ever $1 billion bitcoin-backed bond this month and use the proceeds to buy more cryptocurrencies and build “Bitcoin City” – a planned metropolis that would use geothermal energy from a nearby volcano to “mine” the digital coins. “We believe that between March 15 and 20 is the right timing, we have the…
Cryptocurrency evangelists are on the defensive amid warnings from U.S. and European lawmakers that digital asset companies are not up to the task of complying with Western sanctions imposed on Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The criticism has seen the crypto industry scrambling to regain control of the narrative, with many executives frustrated that the compliance regimes in place at leading exchanges, such as Coinbase and Binance, are being called into question. At the same time, the increased scrutiny could be a pivotal moment for the sector to prove that it is not the “Wild West” of finance…
A third co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has pleaded guilty to failing to prevent money laundering, in part by failing to act after being told it was being used to move illicit funds, U.S. prosecutors said on Wednesday. Samuel Reed, 32, entered the guilty plea in Manhattan federal court to one count of violating a U.S. law called the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to establish an anti-money laundering program at BitMEX, agreeing to pay a $10 million fine. Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo, BitMEX’s two other co-founders, pleaded guilty to similar charges last month. “This office will not permit…