BitPay will have to pay the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control over half a million dollars for crypto services to sanctioned regions. In a Feb. 18 announcement of the settlement, OFAC said that BitPay had facilitated "approximately $129,000 worth of digital currency-related transactions with BitPay’s merchant customers" by users from Crimea, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Syria — effectively the full range of geographical sanctions that OFAC has in place. OFAC repeated that crypto firms need to align themselves with sanctions programs, saying: "This action emphasizes that OFAC obligations apply to all U.S. persons, including those involved …

The U.S. Treasury has settled with BitGo over charges that it facilitated users in sanctioned areas to transact using its crypto wallet services between 2015 and 2019. BitGo, an institutional crypto custodian service and wallet operator, did not do due diligence in blocking wallet users based in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, said the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Controls in a Dec. 30 announcement. OFAC said of BitGo: "BitGo failed to exercise due caution or care for its sanctions compliance obligations when it failed to prevent persons apparently located in sanctioned jurisdictions to open accounts and send digital …

According to an investigative report from RunRun.es, Venezuela intends to increase its use of Bitcoin to pay for imports to bypass financial sanctions imposed by the United States. RunRun.es, which was founded by Venezuelan investigative journalist Nelson Bocaranda, cited anonymous sources from the country’s central bank who claim that “payments to companies from allied countries such as Iran and Turkey have been made using Bitcoin.” It is unclear, what these imports consist of, however, Turkey and Iran currently provide the country food and fuel in exchange for gold. Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro's government has promoted its state-issued, purportedly oil-backed ‘Petro’ …

Elliptic, a leading firm in blockchain analytics, has found major shifts in recent trends in illicit crypto use. Per the firm's study released Wednesday, the proportion of Bitcoin (BTC) transactions that the firm has linked to criminal activity is way down, certainly relative to its 2012 peak: Tom Robinson, Elliptic's chief scientist, explained to Cointelegraph that this is the result of many trends in crypto. These included heightened exchange compliance and law enforcement activity, as well as the growing force of analytics firms like Elliptic itself. Interestingly, Robinson also said general use has simply exploded: "Other crypto use-cases have exploded …

SWIFT, the Brussels-based interbank cooperative, has unveiled its first active instant cross-border payment connection — a move that could have major implications for the global payments landscape. The cooperative announced Thursday that United Kingdom-based Lloyds Banking Group has become the first to connect with SWIFT gpi Instant, the high-speed cross-border rail that settles payments in seconds. The payment system connects SWIFT gpi with the U.K.’s Faster Payments infrastructure, allowing customers to send cross-border payments 24 hours per day, seven days per week. According to SWIFT, the new system: “Enables banks to use existing infrastructure to provide better service 24/7, with …

The regime of Nicolás Maduro continues to lean on crypto to keep economically solvent. Via Instagram, an engineering brigade of the Venezuelan army inaugurated the new "Digital Assets Production Center of the Bolivarian Army of Venezuela." As the video shows, the center houses various ASIC mining equipment used to crack proof-of-work algorithms. General Lenin Herrera presented the new mining operation. The stated goal of the mining operation is "strengthening and self-sustainability of our units of the Bolivarian Army," adding later that these mining centers would be generating "unblockable sources of income" and an alternative to the "trust system blocked and …

The United States national security apparatus is warning other agencies about China’s upcoming digital currency. On Wednesday, news outlet the Washington Examiner reported on a letter that National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe had sent Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton earlier in the month. According to the report, Ratcliffe offered to have staff brief Clayton on the security issues that derive from China’s dominance in crypto mining as well as the country’s progress in digitizing the yuan. Ratcliffe’s letter also apparently pushed Clayton to ensure that U.S. crypto firms remain competitive. Cointelegraph has reported extensively on the race for …

Lawyers representing the United States government have filed a legal memo opposing the dismissal of charges for Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK. According to court records filed Nov. 19 in the Southern District of New York, prosecutors’ referred to Griffith’s Oct. 22 argument to dismiss the charges against him as “unavailing.” The legal team is alleging the former Ethereum Foundation researcher provided a service to the DPRK by using an analogy of a U.S. citizen providing nuclear secrets to scientists in the …

Cuba is seeing an influx of cryptocurrency activity amid an apparent absence of related regulation in the country, according to senior executives at local crypto firms. In early November, Cuba recorded a major spike in Bitcoin (BTC)-related Google queries, indicating an increase in crypto activity in the country. Founders of major local crypto exchanges Qbita and Bitremesas told Cointelegraph that their platforms have seen increased activity in recent months. Erich Garcia, the creator of Bitremesas, told Cointelegraph that the platform has been steadily growing this year, seeing a notable influx in user activity. “By now, the use of the service …

Cuba is apparently seeing an influx of Bitcoin (BTC)-related activity as Bitcoin interest is on the rise in the country. According to data from Google Trends, Cuba now ranks second in terms of Bitcoin interest over the past 30 days. The island nation follows Nigeria, which has remained as the top country searching for Bitcoin on Google since April 2020. The rest of Google’s top five regions searching for Bitcoin comprise the African countries of South Africa, Cameroon and Ghana. Cuba’s rise in Bitcoin-related searches comes amid reports of Cubans increasingly turning to Bitcoin to circumvent sanctions imposed by the …

Cubans are finding new ways to circumvent the embargo sanctions imposed by the U.S. government back in 1962. According to an October 26 report by Cuba's AFP news agency, remittances sent from the U.S. to Cuba often pass through a clandestine network of "crypto enthusiasts" before being converted into Cuban pesos. Erich García, a 33-year-old programmer and local YouTuber, told AFP that anyone who wants to send remittances to the island must buy Bitcoin and send it through a Cuban crypto exchange called BitRemesas. Crypto users on the island then bid to offer recipients the best price for their coins …

Virgil Griffith, the former Ethereum Foundation researcher accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, filed a motion on Thursday to dismiss the charge against him on the grounds that prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have failed to properly state Griffith’s crime. Griffith, 37, was arrested by FBI agents on Nov. 28th, 2019 following a presentation at a conference in North Korea in April. Prosecutors allege that at the conference Griffith rendered services to the North Korean government in the form of “valuable information” he provided to DPRK officials, and that …