The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has charged crypto exchange platform Poloniex for breaching securities trading regulations. According to an announcement by the SEC on Monday, Poloniex offered trading of cryptocurrencies deemed securities to U.S. investors on its platform between July 2017 and November 2019 without duly registering as a securities broker in violation of Section 5 of the Exchange Act. The SEC’s indictment also stated that employees of the exchange actively sought to circumvent securities regulation in a bid to increase the company’s market share. According to the Commission’s enforcement chief Kristina Littman: “Poloniex chose increased …

It’s no secret that Coinbase has played an instrumental role in bringing new users into the crypto space. Coinbase’s friendly onboarding process and status as a publicly traded company allow it to appear as a more traditional investment platform to non-crypto savvy investors, leading to greater trust. However, it seems almost weekly that another article hits the internet about Coinbase and its excessive fees for retail and professional traders and investors. The gripe generally unfolds with a comparison of pricing between a couple of different exchanges. With increased competition, the pressure for Coinbase and exchanges around the world to lower …

A Cayman Islands-based company and two individuals may be the first subjects in decentralized finance, or DeFi, to face enforcement action from the United States Securities and Exchange. According to a Friday announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, said that this is the first case involving securities using DeFi technology which resulted in an enforcement action. The agency said it charged the company Blockchain Credit Partners as well as Florida residents Gregory Keough and Derek Acree, alleging they were involved in offering and selling more than $30 million in unregistered securities from February 2020 to February 2021. DeFi …

Hester Peirce — colloquially known as “Crypto Mom” — of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has warned of rampant “shadow-centralization” within the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. Speaking to outspoken DeFiWatch founder Chris Blec in a Wednesday discussion streamed by The Defiant, the SEC commissioner noted that decentralized organizations and DeFi are new concepts for regulators and that “having a peer-to-peer system that doesn’t have central intermediaries is very different from what we’re normally dealing with.” “If you want to be decentralized, you really need to be decentralized, and that is going to then put you in a different …

Despite the recent breakouts to the $40,000 level, Bitcoin’s (BTC) price could still face downward pressure in August. The 42% rally in late July effectively inspired some optimistic short-term options bets, but the initial data largely favors the neutral-to-bullish call options, and failure to sustain $40,000 has significantly reduced this advantage. A good deal of the pressure is probably coming from the infrastructure proposal in the United States Senate. HR 3684 tightens rules on businesses handling cryptocurrencies and expands reporting requirements for brokers, which has had a knock-on effect on the market’s bullish momentum. In addition to tightening regulations on …

Crypto investors are seeing gains in Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC) on Aug. 5 after the successful launch of Ethereum's London hard fork and a series of new Bitcoin exchange-traded fund filings, resulting in a rally that propelled BTC's price 9% higher and caused Ether to gain 11.75%, which pushed the altcoin closer to the elusive $3,000 level. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that after an early morning sell-off that saw BTC fall to $37,280, the bulls stepped in, and the ensuing high volume spike sent BTC price to an intraday high of $40,775. Recent comments from …

Atlanta-based investment company Invesco is planning to launch a new Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund, or ETF, that will not invest in BTC directly. On Wednesday, Invesco filed an application with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to list a new investment product called Bitcoin Strategy ETF. The Invesco Bitcoin Strategy ETF seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing “all or substantially all of its assets” in Bitcoin futures and exchange-traded products (ETPs), as well as Bitcoin-linked private investment trusts like the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust. The fund may also “at times” invest in Bitcoin ETFs listed outside of …

Amid the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s expanding the scope of oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, a commissioner with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission argued that crypto regulation doesn’t fall under the SEC’s jurisdiction. CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz took to Twitter on Wednesday to declare that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) should be regulated by the CFTC rather than the SEC. Quintenz stressed that cryptocurrencies are commodities and thus fall under the CFTC’s jurisdiction, as opposed to securities that are regulated by the SEC, stating: “Just so we’re all clear here, the SEC has no authority over pure commodities or …

Long-dated Bitcoin options and bulls still make waves with their ultra bullish bets, but even they must admit that the possibility of (BTC) trading above $60,000 in the next couple of months is dim. Many traders have added leveraged-long positions via futures contracts to chase after the elusive all-time high, but this seems like an unrealistic outcome. According to Willy Woo, a popular on-chain analyst, exchange outflows and accumulation from BTC miners and whales suggest that Bitcoin price will reach the $50,000 to $65,000 range in the coming sessions. Even Gary Gensler, the Chair of the United States Securities and …

Investment firm Victory Capital Management has filed an application with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a cryptocurrency exchange-traded fund. In a Form S-1 registration filed Tuesday with the regulatory body, Victory said it intended to move forward with listing an exchange-traded fund, or ETF, tracking the Nasdaq Crypto Index as part of an agreement with Brazilian fund manager Hashdex. The index consists of eight cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Chainlink's LINK, Stellar's Lumen (XLM), Filecoin (FIL) and Uniswap's UNI. “A potential future ETF offering will provide our clients with convenient exposure …

Gary Gensler, chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, believes that the blockchain revolution started by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 is more than just a fad, but a real value proposition for the future of the internet. In an interview with the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday, Gensler talked about his role at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught about the intersection of finance and technology: “[...] in that work I came to believe that though there was a lot of hype masquerading as reality in the crypto field, Nakamoto’s innovation is real.” SEC …

Gary Gensler, chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, is reportedly keen on bright-line regulations for the country’s crypto space. Gensler expressed the SEC’s desire to install safeguards for crypto investors in the U.S. in a Bloomberg interview, stating, “If somebody wants to speculate, that’s their choice, but we have a role as a nation to protect those investors against fraud.” The SEC chairman identified seven crypto-related policy changes currently being examined by the Commission. These include matters concerning token offerings, decentralized finance (DeFi) and stablecoins. Other focus points for Gensler’s SEC are custody, exchange-traded funds (ETF) and …