Last week, Bitcoin (BTC) dodged a regulatory bullet in the European Union when proposed cryptocurrency legislation was altered to not include a ban on proof-of-work- (PoW)-based crypto assets. Policymakers had raised a number of concerns about the relative anonymity of crypto transactions and their environmental impact. Some experts including Tim Frost, founder and CEO of Yield App, believe that the “climate change” angle reflects a hidden attempt to ban Bitcoin. But, why? The proposed EU regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) can be seen as a hybrid approach, which sometimes treats crypto assets as securities and at other times …

The richest country in Europe is coming round to crypto. That’s according to a report by KuCoin which shared some flattering statistics towards the future of crypto in Deutschland. Notably, 44% of Germans are “motivated to invest in cryptocurrencies to be a part of ‘the future of finance’”; while over a third, “37% of German crypto investors have been trading cryptocurrencies for over a year.” Cointelegraph had previously picked up on crypto’s impressive and productive year in Germany, but it’s crucial to check the sentiment toward crypto on the ground. Johnny Lyu, CEO of KuCoin–the company publishing the report–explained to …

Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the emirate’s free zone, published a consultation paper on March 21 titled “Proposals for enhancements to capital markets and virtual assets in ADGM.” The document contains draft guidelines that, among other asset classes, cover nonfungible token (NFT) trading. The paper proposes that companies with a license from the free zone’s financial regulator be allowed to facilitate NFT trading. Along with sections dedicated to traditional financial instruments, the document contains a little more than a page on virtual assets and NFTs. In this section, the free zone’s chief regulator, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), describes …

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini has received an electronic money license from the Central Bank of Ireland. It was the 18th organization to receive the license, and the first since October 2020. Gemini joined such license holders as Coinbase, Stripe, Square and Meta. The e-money license, which Gemini applied for in early 2020 and received March 14, will allow it to issue electronic money, provide electronic payment services and handle electronic payments for third parties. It will also enable the company to passport those services to European Economic Area countries, which are European Union members, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Gemini already provides …

The proposed European Union Regulation on Markets in Crypto Assets, or MiCA, (hereinafter the “regulation”) was put to a vote in the European Union Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on March 14, 2022, and in the end, the proposed amendment to ban or restrict proof-of-work-based crypto assets, which would have effectively resulted in a ban on Bitcoin (BTC), was rejected. The question of how crypto assets will be assessed from an environmental regulation perspective remains, however, with the Member of the European Parliament in charge of the text indicating that crypto assets will be included, like all other …

As pointed out by Caroline Malcolm, Head of International Policy at Chainalysis, the transparent nature of blockchain technology makes it relatively easy for crypto intelligence companies to track funds related to sanctioned entities. “We're in quite a unique position because of the transparency and the permanency and the immutability of that public record”, explained Malcolm in an exclusive Cointelegraph interview. Governments around the world have expressed concerns that Russia could use crypto to evade sanctions imposed as a response to its military offensive against Ukraine. Addressing those concerns, Malcolm pointed out that in the last few years there has been …

The New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to adopt the new version of Chapter 12 of the Universal Commercial Code, or UCC, which will govern transfers of digital assets. The chapter is still in draft form, but if HB1503 is signed into law, New Hampshire will be the first U.S. state to adopt the chapter. Like the draft chapter of the UCC, the bill — titled “Exempting the developer, seller, or facilitator of the exchange of an open blockchain token from certain securities laws” — seeks to create a “workaround” to make it easier to buy …

Three individuals who bought cryptocurrency through Coinbase filed a proposed class action March 11 in the Southern District Court of New York alleging that Coinbase is operating as an unregistered securities exchange. The lawsuit lists 79 tokens that it claims are securities Coinbase is selling in violation of state and federal law, and the buyers were not warned of the risks involved in their purchases. The plaintiffs, Christopher Underwood, Louis Oberlander and Henry Rodriguez, represented by Connecticut law firm Silver Golub & Teitell, filed the amended complaint naming Coinbase Global, Coinbase and CEO Brian Armstrong as defendants. The 255-page document …

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced on Wednesday that it had been granted a license to operate in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The company’s presence in the Middle East has been building up lately, with a crypto service provider license in another Gulf market, Bahrain, coming in earlier this week. Under the Dubai virtual asset provider (VASP) license, Binance will be allowed to set up an office in the emirate and provide digital asset exchange services to pre-qualified investors and financial firms under the newly adopted regulatory guidelines. Dubai is one of the seven emirates constituting the federation of the UAE. It …

On Monday, March 14, the European Blockchain Observatory announced a call for tenders to contract a consortium, whose mission will be to facilitate and operate a pan-European regulatory sandbox for distributed ledger technologies, or DLT, and blockchain in particular. A major task for the future consortium will be to provide “comprehensive legal advice” concerning the operation of the core services of the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). The regulatory sandbox is envisaged as a space where regulators, blockchain enterprises and users will interact “in a trusted environment.” In addition to already existing EBSI projects, it will host a broad range …

United States President Joe Biden signed the Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets on March 9. The order had been expected for several months, giving some in the industry ample time to build up trepidation. Once the executive order, or EO, was released, however, it was met with a chorus of approval. “I was expecting certain things and the positive tone was not necessarily one of them,” TRM Labs head of legal and government affairs Ari Redborn said of the order. Crypto advocacy group Coin Center executive director Jerry Brito tweeted that the EO is “further affirmation …

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Allison Herren Lee announced that she would be stepping down from her post at the end of her term in June. In a Tuesday announcement, Lee said that she will remain in the role until her successor has been confirmed. The SEC commissioner has spent less than three years at her current position, having been sworn in in 2019 to serve out the remainder of a five-year term expiring in June. With her departure, Lee, a Democrat who replaced former commissioner Kara Stein, will create a second vacancy at the SEC, with another left open by …