While the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has yet to approve a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, a recent Nasdaq survey suggested that the offering could lead to greater adoption of crypto among financial advisers. According to the results of a Nasdaq survey released on Monday, 72% of 500 financial advisers would be more likely to invest their clients' assets in cryptocurrency should the SEC approve a spot crypto ETF product in the United States. For those already invested in crypto products, 86% of the financial advisers said they planned to increase allocations within a year — roughly half already …

Last week, there was a lot of regulatory talk about crypto-related risks. While this is very common in itself, some angles and proposed solutions to such risks came across as novel. In the United States, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) issued a letter to commercial and savings banks under its purview, or all federally chartered banks, asking financial institutions to notify the FDIC about all ongoing and planned crypto-related activities. Apparently, standardized guidance for all banks would not fit the bill since the risks seem to be unique in each case. In Singapore, the local monetary authority became concerned …

Institutional investors rejoice, there is one more way to gain exposure to Bitcoin (BTC). The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced overnight the approval of a fourth Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF). Fund group Teucrium is behind the most recently approved Bitcoin Futures ETF. The ETF joins a growing number of approved futures ETFs, complementing ProShares, Valkyrie, and VanEck Bitcoin Futures ETFs. Every Bitcoin spot ETF has been rejected to date, however, for one invested observer, the way in which the approval was made could be a boon for expectant spot investors. The plot thickens on the path …

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 …

Exchange-traded funds issuer ProShares has filed a registration statement with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to list shares of a Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF. In a Tuesday filing, ProShares applied with the SEC for an investment vehicle that would allow users to bet against Bitcoin (BTC) futures using an exchange-traded fund. According to the registration statement, the Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF will be based on daily investment results corresponding to the inverse of the return of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Bitcoin Futures Contracts Index for a day. ProShares just filed for a Short Bitcoin Futures ETF. Even tho …

Venture capital (VC) firms focused on Web3 projects and crypto businesses are accumulating billions of dollars worth of assets under management as more capital is injected into the sector. The assets under management figure for Web3 and crypto investment firm Paradigm has recently been revealed. Filings show that the firm has $13.2 billion in assets, a growth of 343% compared to the $2.98 billion reported in a filing in December 2020. The filings were reviewed by business journalist Eric Newcomer. Writing for his newsletter, he looked at recent applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for some of …

Gary Gensler, chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, said the agency’s protections that apply to investors of traditional assets should extend to those in the crypto market. In prepared remarks released Monday for the Penn Law Capital Markets Association Annual Conference, Gensler said he had requested SEC staff to explore getting crypto platforms registered, having them subject to the same regulatory framework as exchanges. In addition, the SEC chair said the agency’s staff could be working towards addressing regulatory clarity in the crypto space by considering how to register platforms “where the trading of securities and non-securities …

The European Parliament continued to keep crypto users and advocates at the edge of their seats last week as yet another piece of potentially harmful legislation — this time, a set of demanding data disclosure requirements for digital asset service providers — was rushed to a vote mere days after a near miss on banning proof-of-work-based cryptocurrencies. Unlike the relatively happy resolution of the Markets in Crypto Assets framework situation, the EU’s new Anti-Money Laundering rules retained all the crypto-hostile language as they are going into the next round of consideration, the so-called trialogue negotiations. If the rules are enacted …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has officially disapproved the application for ARK 21Shares Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. In a Thursday filing, the SEC rejected a proposed rule change from the Chicago Board Options Exchange, or Cboe, BZX Exchange to list and trade shares of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin (BTC) ETF. The SEC said the proposed rule change, originally published for comment in the Federal Register in August 2021, would not be “‘designed to prevent fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” nor “protect investors and the public interest.” The SEC said that the Cboe BZX Exchange had not …

Cryptocurrency investment firm Galaxy Digital has not managed to finalize the acquisition of the digital asset custodian BitGo in the first quarter of 2022 as the firm originally planned. Galaxy Digital has made some changes to the terms of its acquisition of BitGo, CEO Mike Novogratz announced in an earnings call on Thursday. “We’ve adjusted the deal some, for progress that BitGo has made,” Novogratz said, noting that BitGo has hired about 150 people since the firms originally signed the deal in May last year. He added that Galaxy remains committed to “integrating BitGo and becoming an institutional crypto platform” …

A federal judge has dismissed a class action complaint asserting Binance violated U.S. securities laws by not registering as a broker-dealer or exchange, and sold crypto tokens which were not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The original complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was brought by a group of investors who say they invested in the tokens EOS, BNT, SNT, QSP, KNC, TRX, FUN, ICX, OMG, LEND, ELF, and CVC around 2017 and 2018. An amended complaint was filed, only listing nine tokens, with BNT, SMT, and CVC …

U.S. companies that safeguard their clients’ crypto-assets received new accounting guidance Thursday in the form of a Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, Staff Accounting Bulletin. The guidance got a strong response from SEC commissioner Hester Peirce, a steadfast crypto advocate. Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 noted the high technological, legal and regulatory risks associated with the custody of crypto-assets, relative to traditional assets. Those risks impact the operations and financial condition of companies such as Coinbase, PayPal and Robinhood, which safeguard users’ crypto-assets and allow the users to trade them on their platforms. For this reason, companies are advised to …