This week, United States lawmakers and regulators have stolen much of the spotlight once more. The cryptocurrency-related provisions of the infrastructure bill, a tiny grain of sand in the grand scheme of the omnibus legislation, had all laser eyes glued to the fateful House of Representatives vote — which never happened. There is a sense, however, that the bill will become law sooner rather than later. We have also learned from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell testifying to Congress that the Fed sees no use in a China-style blanket ban on cryptocurrency, eyeing tighter regulation of stablecoins instead. The latter …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has extended the deadline of four Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETF) on Friday for 45 days, citing the requirement for additional time to decide whether to accept the 19b-4 applications. The approval of four Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs — Global X Bitcoin Trust, Valkyrie XBTO Bitcoin Futures Fund, WisdomTree Bitcoin Trust and Kryptoin Bitcoin ETF — was rescheduled to Nov. 21, Dec. 8, Dec. 11 and Dec. 24, respectively. In its official statement, the SEC outlined: “The Commission finds that it is appropriate to designate a longer period within which to take action on the …

Ripple's (XRP) rallied 72% from Aug. 7 to Aug. 14 but since then, every attempt to break out of the descending channel has been quickly suppressed. The past ten days have been no different, with the XRP price correcting by 15%. The platform was first launched in 2012 and Ripple is a distributed open-source protocol and remittance system created by United States-based Ripple Labs. The company provides cross-border payment solutions through domestic partnerships or by offering RippleNet services. At one point, XRP price was trading above $2, but the ongoing multi-year lawsuit between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange …

Dan Berkovitz, one of three commissioners currently serving at the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will be joining the Securities and Exchange Commission as general counsel following his departure in October. In a Tuesday announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, said Berkovitz would assume the role of general counsel starting on Nov. 1, two weeks after stepping down as a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, where he has served since 2018. Berkovitz said he will be working with SEC chair Gary Gensler on a “regulatory agenda that will enhance investor protection.” Though his …

The United Stat Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint against two Robinhood users over an alleged wash-trading-based arbitrage scheme that utilized meme stocks. According to a complaint on Monday, defendants Suyun Gu and Yong Lee took advantage of differing trading fee schedules offered by different retail brokers and exchanges to extract arbitrage while wash-trading. By trading between venues that offer rebates to market makers and those that do not charge fees to market takers, the SEC estimates they generated more than $1.5 million worth of rebates in total through the alleged wash-trading scheme. Gu and Lee are believed …

In the wake of yet another iteration of China’s enduring crackdown on cryptocurrency, a particularly influential narrative on Crypto Twitter suggests that by banning Bitcoin (BTC), China has definitively put itself on the dark side of the struggle, while the collective West must now resolutely throw its weight on the opposite side by embracing crypto. Granted, this framework for thinking about the relationship between political power and decentralized finance is appealing for crypto allies. Yet the news coming out of the United States gives few reasons to believe that policymakers there see the situation this way. It appears that U.S. …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has delivered a report to Congress containing recommendations from small businesses seeking regulatory clarification on the role of digital assets. In a Monday announcement, the SEC’s Office of the Advocate for Small Business Capital Formation reported on recommendations from the commission’s 40th Annual Small Business Forum held in May. Participants at the forum — including all five SEC Commissioners, 14 members of SEC staff, 12 small business advocates, 11 guest speakers, and 610 other participants from the U.S. public — recommended that the U.S. Congress “clarify the status of digital assets …

The growth of the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has been a recurrent headline throughout 2021 and to date, hundreds of billions of dollars in crypto assets are locked on protocols across numerous blockchain networks and earning a yield for their holders. What started off as a simple Ethereum-based swap interface that allowed ERC-20 tokens to be exchanged in a decentralized manner, called Uniswap, has exploded into a vast ecosystem full of decentralized exchanges, yield farms, lending protocols and staking platforms. As development continues and older protocols become more established, newer projects have emerged to incorporate more pieces from the traditional …

Welcome to the latest edition of Cointelegraph’s decentralized finance, or DeFi, newsletter. In a week where DeFi’s parabolic growth continued elsewhere, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler threatened to tackle stablecoins. What you’re about to read is the smaller version of this newsletter. For the full breakdown of DeFi’s developments over the last week — released a whole lot quicker than Cardano’s smart contracts — subscribe at the bottom of this page. Layer two’s defining the future This week, analytical data revealed that DeFi continues to be one of the fastest-growing sectors of the crypto economy …

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong claims that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission is the only government branch that is unwilling to meet with the firm. Speaking on Anthony Pompliano’s Best Business Show on Friday, Armstrong said that during his visit to Washington after Coinbase went public in April, the SEC was the “only regulator” that refused to meet with him: “I reached out to the SEC. I tried to get a meeting with them. They told me that they weren’t meeting with any crypto companies.” “I was kind of surprised by that because there are so many different regulators …

Ether (ETH) has been in a bearish trend since early September, and this week's Evergrande-led market crash drove the price below $2,700 on Sept.20, its lowest level in 47 days. Curiously, just three weeks ago, Ether was testing the $4,000 psychological barrier, but this changed after mounting crypto regulatory concerns and the fear of China's debt markets triggering a global sell-off intensified. This week United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler spoke to the Washington Post about renewed plans to regulate the crypto sector and the growing stablecoin market. Ether's negative price trend reversed on Sept. 22 …

Coinbase is looking for a new hire to manage the exchange’s sour relationship with policymakers. The United States-based crypto exchange aims to swell its legal and compliance team ranks. The company is looking for more than 350 new hires, with 24 job openings within the legal and compliance team. More specifically, Coinbase is seeking a new manager to oversee communications with U.S. policymakers. Along with a strong network in Washington D.C, Coinbase expects its new U.S. policy communications manager, who would lead its media relations and strategic presence in critical policy debates, to have “excellent political judgment.” Better communication with …