Following the withdrawal of former Federal Reserve Board governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, United States President Joe Biden has announced his intention to nominate former Obama administration official and law professor Michael Barr as the central bank’s vice chair for supervision. In a Friday announcement, the White House said Barr was Biden’s pick to supervise the Federal Reserve and set the regulatory agenda for its leadership. Barr was on the advisory board of Ripple Labs from 2015 to 2017, served as the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for financial institutions under former President Barack Obama, and taught courses on financial regulation at …

The bill regulating the cryptocurrency market in Brazil is expected to be approved by the National Congress in the first half of this year, according to Cointelegraph Brazil. The legislation, which has been debated in the Chamber of Deputies since 2015, has been approved in the first round of consideration. The Senate has attached it to another crypto-focused bill, which has already been approved by the Economic Affairs Committee of the Senate. Two legislators, Senator Irajá Abreu and Deputy Aureo Ribeiro, both rapporteurs of the aforementioned proposals in their respective legislative chambers, are drafting a unified text of the bill …

Cryptocurrency mixers have been an interesting topic of discussion ever since the advent of cryptocurrencies and their adoption by retail investors around the world. Cryptocurrency mixers are services that essentially focus on one feature of a blockchain network: privacy. Cryptocurrency mixers, also known as tumblers, provide anonymity so no one can trace the sender or receiver of a transaction. This can help protect the identity of individuals who want to be completely anonymous and non-traceable. How cryptocurrency mixers work is that they break down the funds sent using the mixer and scramble them with other transactions. They break the link …

Whatever you prefer to call it — crypto, blockchain or Web3 — this new segment of the digital economy is booming across Africa. If you’ve been sleeping on the sector, now’s a good time to wake up. Why? Well for one, according to analytics firm Chainalysis, Africa’s crypto market increased in value by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021. Led by especially high adoption rates in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania, Africa had the third-fastest growing cryptocurrency economy worldwide during that period. And that’s not all. Chainalysis also found that Africa leads the world in the …

Cory Gardner, who served as a United States senator for Colorado from 2015 to 2021, has joined the Crypto Council for Innovation, a crypto advocacy group aimed at establishing dialogues with governments and regulatory agencies on the benefits of digital assets. In a Thursday announcement, the Crypto Council for Innovation, or CCI, said Gardner was one of three new members to join the group’s leadership team. Under CEO Sheila Warren, the former senator will work alongside Amanda Russo, a communicators adviser for the World Economic Forum, and Annie Dizon, a former executive with social impact nonprofit TechSoup. In addition, Katherine …

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen listed stablecoins as one of the major policy concerns in the digital asset space for regulators, currently subject to “inconsistent and fragmented oversight.” Speaking to attendees at American University in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Yellen said the Treasury Department was working with Congress to advance legislation to help ensure that “stablecoins are resilient to risks” for consumers and the U.S. financial system. According to the Treasury Secretary, while stablecoins raised “policy concerns” and issues around the coins’ reserve assets, many parts of the digital asset space present potential risks that could exacerbate inequality. “Our …

Republican Senator Pat Toomey, the ranking member for the Senate Banking Committee, has drafted a bill proposing a regulatory framework for stablecoins in the United States. According to a draft released Wednesday, the ‘Stablecoin Transparency of Reserves and Uniform Safe Transactions Act’, otherwise known as the Stablecoin TRUST Act, proposed the digital assets be identified as “payment stablecoins” — a convertible virtual currency used as a medium of exchange that can be redeemed for fiat by the issuer. Critically, the bill proposed such offerings be exempt from securities regulations by amending existing laws to ensure the definition of "security" does …

United States Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday that her department is not seeing significant use of cryptocurrencies to evade sanctions placed on Russian oligarchs and government agencies. Yellen was asked repeatedly about digital asset security at the committee’s annual hearing on the state of the international financial system. “We are aware of the possibility clearly that crypto could be used as a tool to evade sanctions and we are carefully monitoring to make sure that doesn’t occur,” Yellen said, “but I would say that we have a good deal of authority in this …

United States President Joe Biden is reportedly planning to nominate two commissioners to the Securities and Exchange Commission with different political party affiliations. According to a Wednesday report from the Wall Street Journal, Biden is considering Democrat Jaime Lizárraga, a staffer for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Republican Mark Uyeda, counsel for the Senate Banking Committee on securities and capital markets, to fill seats left behind by SEC commissioners Allison Lee and Elad Roisman, respectively. Roisman left the regulatory body at the end of January, while Lee is expected to depart when her term expires in June. Lizárraga worked on …

The Swedish central bank’s digital currency project, a proposed CBDC known as the e-krona, has successfully finished its second phase of trials. According to Riksbank, the nation's central bank, the asset is now technically ready to be integrated into banking networks and to facilitate transactions. During the second phase of the e-krona pilot project — which began in February 2021 — the CBDC was investigated on the matter of its technical ability to function within the country’s existing digital banking infrastructure. Participating banks included Handelsbanken and Tietoevry. The report indicated that the e-krona could indeed be successfully exchanged for fiat …

Two members of the House of Representatives have introduced legislation aimed at mitigating the risks to the United States financial system due to El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal currency. In a Monday announcement, California Representative Norma Torres and Arkansas Representative Rick Crawford proposed legislation which would direct the State Department to create a plan mitigating the potential risks to the U.S. financial system based on an analysis of the risks to El Salvador’s “cybersecurity, economic stability, and democratic governance” following the country recognizing Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in September 2021. The Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador Act …

The rise of Web3 has paved the way for new business models that could shape the next phase of the internet. For instance, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) will play a large part in the open metaverse as the underlying assets people interact with. Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) are also coming to fruition to allow for community governance within virtual environments. The growth of Web3 has essentially allowed NFTs and DAOs to flourish. For example, recent data from DeepDAO — a DAO stats platform — shows that DAOs have experienced 130-times growth over the last year, reaching a market capitalization of $24.8 …