Regulation

Several Russian banks that have been sanctioned over Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine will no longer support major payment services like Apple Pay and Google Pay. Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB — as well as other banks like Sovcombank, Otkritie, Novikombank and Promsvyazbank — are on the list of companies sanctioned by the United States,

The founders of crypto exchange BitMEX have pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act after a lengthy litigation process with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). American Arthur Hayes and British Hong Konger Benjamin Delo admitted to “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering (AML) program” at their crypto derivatives and

The sanctions announced by United States President Joe Biden in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine did not include cutting the country off from payments on the SWIFT system or cryptocurrency transfers. In a Thursday announcement from the White House, Biden said the U.S. and its allies and partners would be enforcing sanctions aimed at

Robert Gryn is a serial entrepreneur who has built a high-tech Metaverse scanner which he hopes will act as a portal from our physical reality into the Metaverse. It is no secret that the physical world is beginning to merge with the digital, and that blockchain is serving as the arbiter of reality in many

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau has announced he will repeal emergency powers used to freeze $8 million from 210 bank accounts connected to Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ protestors, according to CBC news. On Feb. 24, Trudeau stated in a televised press conference that “we’re ready to confirm that the situation is no longer an emergency”

The European Commission, in coordination with other authorities, reportedly plans to have its financial watchdog group potentially oversee illicit transactions at crypto firms. According to a Tuesday Bloomberg report, a group of European Union member nations led by Germany and including The Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Italy and Luxembourg plan to include crypto firms under the

A European subsidiary of United States-based crypto trading platform Uphold has received approval from the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). According to the FCA website, Uphold’s U.K. subsidiary Uphold Europe Limited gained regulatory approval on Feb. 17, 2022, joining the select list of 32 firms that have received FCA approval as a Registered Crypto

The Brazilian Senate is set to vote on a bill which would make the country the biggest in Latin America to regulate cryptocurrency.  The crypto bill was unanimously approved by the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee on Feb. 22, potentially increasing the chances that it will pass a vote on the Senate floor. Once passed by

After the Taliban took full control of Afghanistan in August last year, many international non-governmental organizations and services stopped operating in the country. Among them were payment services like Western Union and Swift. Many Afghans subsequently began to learn about cryptocurrencies and the underlying blockchain technology to — at the very least — receive remittances

El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in September 2021 has triggered a notable surge not only for its gross domestic product (GDP) but also for the local tourism development. According to Salvadoran Tourism Minister Morena Valdez, the tourism industry in El Salvador has surged more than 30% since the adoption of the

California State Senator Sydney Kamlager, representing the 30th Senate District including parts of downtown Los Angeles, has introduced a bill which would amend the state’s code to allow for the acceptance of cryptocurrencies for certain payments. According to Senate Bill 1275 introduced in the California Legislature on Feb. 18, Kamlager proposed authorizing a state agency

Amid the barrage of last week’s regulatory news, from rumors of Joe Biden’s upcoming executive order on digital assets to another round of the Russian government’s crypto tug of war, the storyline that was arguably the most consequential for the mainstream narrative on the social effects of crypto has been the one around the Canadian

It might seem unlikely that BlockFi founder and CEO Zac Prince would describe a prosecution that resulted in a $100-million fine for his company as “a win not only for BlockFi but for the broader cryptocurrency industry,” but that is indeed what he said. And, he might be right, although it remains to be seen

Leaked data shows that until recently, Swiss bank Credit Suisse held accounts valued at more than $100 billion for sanctioned individuals and heads of state reportedly accused of money laundering. The New York Times reported on Feb. 20 that the data leak included more than 18,000 bank accounts. The data goes back to accounts that were

Unlike some of my peers in the technology space, I don’t see the Metaverse as a virtual world in which we work, socialize and shop. Rather, I see it as a point in time, reached in 2020 and into this year because of the global pandemic, when the digital world became as important as the

2021 has been a significant year for crypto with no fungible token (NFT) being awarded word of the year, decentralized finance (DeFi) trending in the mainstream media and crypto companies making headlines for a variety of announcements. This is, no doubt, in part due to the effects that COVID-19 has had on the economy, with