Caroline Crenshaw, a commissioner at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, has said the “safe harbor” proposal would have exacerbated the problems seen during the initial coin offering (ICO) boom of 2017 and 2018. Crenshaw made the remarks during the annual “SEC Speaks” event this month and posted her speech to the SEC website on Tuesday. The commissioner argues that the impact on investors and markets would have been far greater if safe harbor provisions were in place at the time: “I think the results would have been even worse for investors and the markets. ICOs and other digital …

Crypto asset investors may have a longer wait for a Bitcoin (BTC) futures exchange-traded product according to Todd Rosenbluth, senior director of exchange-traded funds (ETF) and mutual fund research at research firm CFRA. Speaking on CNBC’s ETF Edge on Monday, Rosenbluth stated that while a Bitcoin futures product is likely to be the first crypto ETF to gain approval, he cautioned that the current clouded regulatory situation could cause further delays. There are more than 20 crypto asset-based exchange-traded products waiting for approval from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and the regulator is yet to pass any, instead …

Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), rallied by more than 15% in the first 12 days of October. But, compared to Bitcoin’s (BTC) 30% gains in the same period, the second-largest cryptocurrency is currently in a downtrend when priced in BTC. So far into October (and the fourth quarter of 2021), the ETH/BTC exchange rate has plunged by over 12%, reaching 0.060215 BTC for the first time in more than two months on Oct. 12. The drop also pushed ETH/BTC below one of its longest-standing support zones, the 200-day exponential moving average (200-day EMA; the orange wave), as shown in the …

Institutional investors are continuing to pile into Bitcoin (BTC) despite prices pushing up to a five-month high. According to CoinShares’ Tuesday “Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly” report, more than $226 million in capital flowed to institutional Bitcoin products this past week. Bitcoin products dominated inflows for the third consecutive week, posting a week-over-week increase of 227%. The heavy inflows coincided with the price of BTC gaining 12.5% for the week, with BTC sitting at around $54,000 on Friday. CoinShares attributes the positive shift in sentiment toward Bitcoin to recent statements from United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler …

Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis said the Treasury Department may be more of a threat to innovation in blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the United States than the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Speaking at the Texas Blockchain Summit in Austin on Friday, Lummis said her recent concerns with the federal agency came from the language concerning brokers of cryptocurrency in the infrastructure bill currently at the center of debate in Congress — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has expressed her support of the legislation. Under the wording passed by the Senate in August, brokers would have to …

There is nothing surprising about Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Wyoming Republican known to be among the staunchest crypto supporters in the U.S. legislature, revealing a sizable Bitcoin (BTC) purchase that she had made earlier in the summer. It is still oddly satisfying to observe the alignment between a politician’s long-declared stance on an issue and corresponding monetary behavior (Lummis had been hodling BTC since 2013). Such consistency will be a norm in blockchain-based governance systems where individuals’ interests are aligned with those of the entire community and where all information that could be of remote public interest is transparent. Below …

XRP has a good chance of hitting $1.50 in the fourth quarter of 2021 after painting a bullish crossover between its 20-day and 50-day exponential moving averages (EMA). The so-called golden cross has appeared multiple times on XRP charts in history. Its last occurrence was on Aug. 10, which followed up with an 80% price rally later, with XRP topping out seasonally at $1.43 before pulling back to the downside. Similarly, a close of XRP’s 20-day EMA above 50-day EMA on Feb. 4, coincided with an approximately 400% price rally afterward. In doing so, XRP reached a year-to-date high of …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has approved the Volt Crypto Industry Revolution and Tech ETF, providing investors with easy access to companies with significant exposure to Bitcoin (BTC). The exchange-traded fund, which was approved on Tuesday, is intended to track so-called “Bitcoin Industry Revolution Companies,” which are defined as entities that hold a majority of their net assets in BTC or derive a majority of their earnings from Bitcoin mining, lending or transacting, according to an SEC filing. Eighty percent of the fund's holdings will be allocated to such companies, the prospectus states. The new ETF …

A surge in Bitcoin (BTC) prices today may be in response to increased speculation that an exchange-traded product could finally be approved in the coming weeks. BTC prices are up 7% over the past 24 hours and have surged a whopping 32% over the past week, according to CoinGecko. This bullish price action for BTC only may be a form of front-running by big bag holders in anticipation of a futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. On Thursday, Bloomberg senior analyst Eric Balchunas responded to an exclamation from founder and partner at Morgan …

Financial services company MoneyGram International has partnered with the Stellar Development Foundation to enable consumers to send money using Circle’s popular stablecoin, USD Coin (USDC), and convert directly to and from fiat. Per a Wednesday announcement, MoneyGram has integrated support allowing crypto wallets connected to the Stellar Network to access its global retail platform. Working alongside Circle, MoneyGram will also enable “near-instant backend settlement,” account funding and local fiat withdrawals using the USDC stable token. United Texas Bank will act as the settlement bank to complete the process within the regulatory framework. “As crypto and digital currencies rise in prominence, …

Gary Gensler, head of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, has confirmed that his agency does not have the authority or intention to ban cryptocurrency. While responding to questions during a House Committee on Financial Services hearing on Tuesday, Gensler emphasized that prohibiting crypto does not fall within the SEC’s mandate, stating, “That would be up to Congress.” “It’s a matter of how we get this field within the investor consumer protection that we have and also working with bank regulators and others — how do we ensure that the Treasury Department has it within Anti-Money Laundering, tax compliance,” …

There has been another twist in the ongoing battle between distributed ledger technology firm Ripple and the United State Securities and Exchange Commission. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled that individuals holding the company’s XRP token cannot act in Ripple’s ongoing lawsuit as defendants. The determination comes after a number of XRP token holders aimed to file “friends of the court” briefs, which would allow them to join the case as defendants and support Ripple in its claims that the token does not violate securities laws. Judge Torres asserted that allowing XRP holders to join the suit would …