Eighteen months after Gerald Cotten, founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of QuadrigaCX, was reported to have died while doing volunteer work at an orphanage in India, and most crypto users apparently believe he’s still alive. The Canadian exchange is just one of many that are suspected of fraudulent exit scams, with publicity around the cases believed to be turning some users off of crypto. According to an online poll conducted during a Virtual Consensus 2020 event ⁠— “QuadrigaCX - Yell Into the Void and Get Some Questions Answered” ⁠— 60% of viewers polled said they believed Cotten was definitely …

Federated Co-operatives Limited, or FCL, one of Canada’s 50-largest companies, has partnered with blockchain-based supply chain middleware platform, Morpheus.Network. FCL plans to integrate distributed ledger technology, or DLT, based tracking. This will be deployed across its diverse supply chain, encompassing 1,400 businesses across Western Canada and employs over 23,000 workers. Major Canadian co-operative embraces blockchain The firms have inked a three-year deal that will see Morpheus.Network provide optical character recognition, machine learning, and blockchain technologies to streamline FCL’s complex supply chain. FCL is a wholesaling, manufacturing, marketing, and administrative co-operative opened by more than 170 independent retail associations. The entity …

The United States-based Blockchain Association has filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Canadian messenger Kik amid the firm’s legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The association addressed the April 17 brief to the court which is considering the case, asking it to deny the SEC’s motion for summary judgment and decide the case narrowly to avoid casting doubt on cryptocurrency projects that have yet to appear before the court. In March, the SEC requested summary judgment, claiming that it possessed “undisputed evidence” that Kik’s ICO distributed unlicensed securities. Not the same as Telegram’s case Basically, the …

Cybercriminals are taking full advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced life into a digital realm, by leveraging increased fear and uncertainty to steal money and launder it through the complex cryptocurrency ecosystem. Accordingly, the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement, known as the J5, has ramped up its efforts by arresting cybercriminals suspected of laundering millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, according to a J5 joint statement. The J5 also has been updating its Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism laws for cryptocurrencies in accordance with Financial Action Task Force standards, with Australian researchers having linked half …

The lack of uniformity among different jurisdictions’ cryptocurrency laws makes it difficult for crypto exchanges seeking to expand to new markets. While some countries are embracing and fostering innovation, others are more hostile to Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. Further exacerbating the difficulty is the lack of regulatory certainty in many jurisdictions, including the United States. Below are four of the most significant international regulatory milestones so far in 2020. The European Union’s AML rules now apply to cryptocurrency exchanges The European Union’s Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism rules now apply to crypto custodians, such as wallets …

On April 9, Canadian asset manager 3iQ announced that its efforts to launch a fund tied to Bitcoin (BTC) on the Toronto Stock Exchange had finally come to fruition after three years of continued legal disputes. As a result of this move, 3iQ has become the first firm to release such an offering commercially on the exchange. Currently trading under the name, “The Bitcoin Fund,” the offering has around 1.5 million Class A “QBTC.U” shares available on the Toronto Stock Exchange, or TSX. At press time, each share is trading for around $12. The price indexes being used by the …

Canadian asset manager 3iQ has become the first firm to launch a fund tied to Bitcoin (BTC) on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), after three years of legal wrangling. ‘The Bitcoin Fund’ listed nearly 1.5 million Class A ‘QBTC.U’ shares on TSX on April 9. The fund’s shares are currently trading for around $11 each. On April 10, entrepreneur and crypto investor Tyler Winklevoss tweeted that The Bitcoin Fund’s launch on TSX was historic as it is “the first public Bitcoin fund listed on a major stock exchange.” The Winklevoss twins' crypto exchange Gemini is acting as a custodian for …

Publicly-listed Canadian mining and blockchain infrastructure firm Bitfarms is temporarily reducing staff, citing the economic and social toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an update published on April 6, the company revealed it had succeeded in maintaining an average daily hashrate of approximately 750 PH since March 19 by optimizing its operations in order to maximize its computing power. This, according to Bitfarms, has meant that the firm has managed “to generate positive cash flow in [...] difficult times,” noting the chaos in traditional and cryptocurrency markets. Yet the company also revealed another component to maintaining its viability during the …

Canadian conservation authorities and technology firm Insolar are conducting a test-bed blockchain project for renewable energy management. Within the scope of its Sustainable Technologies Evaluation Program (STEP), on April 1 the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) announced a collaboration with blockchain specialist Insolar to leverage the technology for managing distributed energy resources (DERs). Ontario’s long-term energy plan has reportedly identified DERs as an essential policy strategy that will help to close the growing gap in electricity supply as the region works to replace 30% of its conventional power production with sustainable sources over the next 15 years. Data flows …

HIVE Blockchain Technologies, a Canadian publicly-traded ether (ETH) mining firm, has announced on March 30 the acquisition of a dedicated cryptocurrency mining operation with access to 30 megawatts of low-cost green power. The transaction was valued at CAD $4 million (USD $2.8 M). The facility, leased by Cryptologic Corp, is located in Lachute, Quebec. The firm intends to expand its total available power capacity globally to approximately 50MW, whose mining activities in Europe are focused on the Ethereum network, while Bitcoin miners will be supported in Quebec’s facility. Giving priority to the green power According to Frank Holmes, interim executive …

As the world’s supervisory agencies start to heed the crypto guidelines of the Financial Action Task Force, a new regulatory landscape is taking shape within the crypto industry. The latest country to annex the FATF directives is Canada, but how will the new rules impact crypto business in the country? In a report released March 10, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Center of Canada, or FINTRAC, unveiled plans for an “enhanced AML regime.” Come June 1, 2020, FINTRAC will treat all crypto firms as money service business, or MSB. This will place added scrutiny on cryptocurrency transfers, customer identification …

EY, the court-appointed bankruptcy trustee for the defunct Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, has been asked to submit all of the exchange’s user information to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Court documents filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on March 24 detail the demand, which spans 750,000 documents on the exchange’s 115,000 customers. Canadian tax authority requests trove of QuadrigaCX user data “The Trustee has advised CRA that its intention is to simply produce a copy of the full EDiscovery Database, redacted only for the privilege, in response to the CRA Production Demand,” the document states. The requested data …