Bringing closure to the long-awaited judgment related to the money laundering activities over the BitMEX crypto exchange, one of the four federal district courthouses in New York reportedly sentenced two-year probation and six months of home detention to founder and ex-CEO Arthur Hayes. Arthur Hayes, along with the other BitMEX co-founders Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed, and the company’s first non-employee Gregory Dwyer, pleaded guilty to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations on Feb 24, admitting to “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering (“AML”) program at BitMEX.” Pleading guilty to supporting money laundering is a punishable …

In a letter published on Thursday, the New York State Department of Financial Services, or NYDFS, recommended that all digital currency companies operating under New York banking law adopt blockchain analytics to trace transactions. In supporting the decision, the regulatory agency wrote: “Wallet addresses are typically pseudonymous, with nothing on the face of the transfer tying back to the originator, beneficiary, or underlying beneficial owners.” Therefore, as told by NYDFS, it is vital that such classes of firms use blockchain analytics to prevent illicit transactions, such as money laundering or terrorism financing. The agency also outlined three analytical processes that …

Governments around the globe have also become more aware of the crypto market and the various ways in which it can be regulated. Despite a growing adoption rate and involvement of mainstream financial giants, however, naysayers continue to portray crypto as a tool for miscreants and criminals. Several crypto platforms and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols have been compromised over the years, owing to various code vulnerabilities or centralization problems. However, stealing of money is the easiest part, while moving that money and cashing it out is nearly impossible. This is primarily because most crypto transactions are recorded on a public …

Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $40,000 support on April 18, and the two-week 15% correction was enough to prompt predictions of $30,000 prices in the near term. Meanwhile, regulatory uncertainties continue to be a key concern for investors, including the failed European Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) proposed rules for ”unhosted” private wallets. For instance, exchanges started to demand additional information on their users just last week, causing some discomfort to traders. Europe regulation “near miss” brings distress The European Union Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted on March 14 to ban or restrict proof-of-work-based crypto …

Major global cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp continues increasing compliance efforts by requesting its users to provide more data like their source of wealth. In an email notification to users on Wednesday, Bitstamp informed its customers about the ongoing policy upgrades on the platform, with the exchange seeking additional info about its clients, one Bitstamp user told Cointelegraph. The email reads: “We work closely with our regulatory partners to ensure we continue to be your trusted exchange. Towards this, we need your account information to be updated, to provide you with the latest products and crypto assets.” Bitstamp specifically requested users to …

An ambitious new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) has built a data service for lending platforms that records a user’s financial reputation to reduce the amount of collateral needed for a loan. It has partnered with Chainlink and that protocol’s founder Sergey Nazarov is an early backer. Users of Reputation DAO will have traditional financial data such as Anti-Money Laundering and Know-Your-Customer (AML/KYC), credit scores and banking data tied to their account. The data is designed to help ease friction in obtaining a loan from a decentralized platform, but raises questions about security and the principles of zero-knowledge lending. The Reputation …

The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs recently approved a draft of its comprehensive Markets in Crypto Assets, or MiCA, crypto regulation package. The new framework covers a wide range of crypto-related subjects, such as the status of all major currencies and stablecoins and the regulation of crypto mining and exchange platforms. Stefan Berger, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), is the Parliament’s rapporteur for the upcoming MiCA regulation — the person appointed to report on proceedings related to the bill. In the associated negotiations, the German politician vehemently opposed, among other things, a ban on …

Cronos has partnered with the blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis to enable real-time transaction monitoring tools for the Cronos (CRO) token and all CRC-20 tokens running on the Cronos network, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Wednesday. The new compliance integration aims to enable institutions, cryptocurrency exchanges and digital asset funds to track transactions of CRC-20 tokens, allowing users to trace large volumes of activity and identify high-risk transactions. The partnership specifically allows institutions and exchanges to focus on the most urgent issues and properly report suspicious activity. The integration is yet another milestone in the development and institutional …

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 …

Last week, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) voted in favor of a regulatory update that could compromise the exchange platforms’ ability to deal with noncustodial crypto wallets. Should the regulatory project make it to the legislation phase in the upcoming months, it would place severe disclosure requirements on transactions between noncustodial wallets and crypto exchanges in the European Union — a process whose signs are visible in other parts of the globe as well. What happened On Thursday, March 31, ECON and LIBE members …

Less than a week after a potential ban on Proof-of-Work (PoW) digital assets was dropped from the EU’s prospective MiCA framework, a new threat to the crypto industry could be emerging in the European Union. This time, it is non-custodial, or unhosted, wallets that are in regulators’ crosshairs. On Thursday, March 31, the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will vote on an anti-money laundering (AML) regulatory package that seeks to revise the current Transfer of Funds Regulation (TFR) in a way that extends the requirement of financial institutions to attach information on the transacting parties to crypto …

Recent weeks saw a massive surge of the so-called privacy coins’ prices — namely Monero (XMR), Dash (DASH), Zcash (ZEC) and Haven Protocol (XHV). As many other cryptocurrencies and the industry at large faced immense regulatory pressure amid the war in Ukraine, one narrative that began taking hold in the crypto space was the potential of such privacy-enhancing assets to provide investors a greater level of financial anonymity. But, can privacy coins deliver on Bitcoin’s (BTC) original promise? A good month for privacy-focused assets Over the past month, Monero has almost doubled its tally. With some minor oscillations, it rose …