Timothy Massad, who served as Chair of the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission between 2014 and 2017, has laid out the reasons why he thinks regulators should approve a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund. In an opinion piece published on Bloomberg Wednesday, Massad said the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, should approve a Bitcoin ETF in a manner that would enhance the transparency and integrity of the nascent cryptocurrency industry. This way, investors can access the digital asset without having to buy it off exchanges or worry about self-custody. Massad said the ideal path for approving a Bitcoin ETF would …

2021 has already seen a number of eye-catching milestones reached for the nascent nonfungible token (NFT) market, which has seen an increase in value of 2,100% from Q4 2020, with consumers spending over $2 billion. While headlines have been dominated by record-breaking sales, what’s often overlooked is the growing demand from new investors. According to NonFungible, which tracks NFT transactions, there were 73,000 NFT buyers and 33,000 NFT sellers in Q1. Although these numbers may seem impressive, they are in fact relatively small compared to the global art market, which was valued at $64.7 billion in 2018, with the United …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has appointed New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal as Director of the Division of Enforcement. The appointment will be effective from July 26, with the SEC adding the veteran prosecutor to its ranks to play a key role in regulating financial markets in the U.S. “He has the ideal combination of experience, values, and leadership ability to helm the Enforcement Division at this critical time. I look forward to working closely with him to protect investors and root out wrongdoing in our markets," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Grewal is a replacement …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is here to stay with over $100 billion in total value locked (TVL), highlighting the evidence of faith in these new financial tools. This investment will continue to increase, but it appears that with each new record in TVL, there is another network attack being reported with astronomical losses. Crypto crime dropped 57% in 2020, but DeFi hacks surged, costing companies and investors billions of U.S. dollars. In March alone, there were several attacks within just a five-day period, with Paid Network losing $180 million. Later in May, PancakeBunny lost more than $200 million in a flash …

Coinbase has unveiled a new tool that can automatically audit smart contracts built on Ethereum that use the Solidity programming language. Designed to be used by smart contract auditors, asset issuers and other exchanges, the firm has plans to make the tool open source later this year In a Wednesday post, Coinbase principal blockchain security engineer Peter Kacherginsky announced the firm’s new security analysis tool dubbed “Solidify,” which was created to improve on the “time-intensive and error-prone” process of manual smart contract analysis. The engineer noted that the exchange’s token listing process requires extensive security reviews and “risk mitigation recommendations” …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has charged a cryptocurrency issuer for “making materially false and misleading statements” in connection with an unregistered security offering conducted between August 2017 and January 2018, offering further evidence that regulators were still targeting initial coin offerings from the last major market mania. Loci Inc., the platform behind LOCIcoin, and CEO John Wise were formally charged on Tuesday. The SEC claims that Loci and Wise misled investors about the company’s revenues, employee numbers and user base during the $7.6 million crowdsale. The regulator also alleges that Wise misused $38,163 in investor …

Blockchain intelligence platform TRM Labs has secured $14 million in Series A funding from venture funds across the crypto and technology sectors, sending a strong signal that major investors are backing digital-asset projects with ever-growing conviction. The venture capital arms of PayPal and Salesforce contributed to the raise, which was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, a VC with 130 IPOs under its belt. The full list of investors includes Initialized Capital, Jump Capital, Operator Partners, Blockchain Capital and executives from Google-parent Alphabet Inc. Ethan Kuzweil, a partner at Bessemer and new TRM board member, explained his firm’s rationale for leading …

A startup says it offers two-factor authentication on blockchain for the very first time. Shield Protocol is taking on the likes of Authy and Google Authenticator — and offers security while eliminating data collection and centralized storage. A simple interface also means it’s a tool that will be accessible for everyday users. The project is based on Binance Smart Chain and is currently in the process of integrating with Polygon. It also offers a dedicated wallet where multiple cryptocurrency assets can be stored securely. Across the crypto community (and in the fiat world,) security experts have been hammering home the …

Twelve months ago, the total value of cryptocurrency locked in staking programs was barely more than $1 billion. Today, there is $58 billion locked in decentralized finance, or DeFi. The adoption of DeFi has been a sea change that’s helped push the crypto industry into the mainstream, but it’s hardly the only one. Mainstream institutions including MicroStrategy and Tesla have poured billions of dollars into Bitcoin — and some have been buying the dip — while nonfungible tokens have evolved from CryptoKitties and CypherPunks to an artistic medium pulling in millions in bids for a new generation of digital artists …

It has been said that you only get one chance to make a first impression. Perhaps the best example of this old adage is the cryptocurrency space. From exit scams and money laundering, to unaudited code and high carbon footprints, the crypto landscape has spent the better part of the past decade scrubbing itself of its infamous past. For many, the sanitizing of the decentralized ecosystem was inevitable — simply a matter of when, not if. This mindset hindered the sense of urgency that should have been on display and may have ultimately contributed to the skepticism exhibited by mainstream …

A pair of Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications submitted by Fidelity Investments and SkyBridge Capital are under official review by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, reigniting a long-standing debate about whether regulators will finally approve America’s first crypto-focused ETF. The SEC’s formal review of Fidelity Investments’ application was documented in a Tuesday filing that appeared on the regulator’s website. The formal review of the SkyBridge application was outlined in a May 21 filing. Both ETF applications were submitted in March. As Cointelegraph reported at the time, Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital partnered with investment adviser First Trust Advisors …

The Ethereum Foundation has published a blog post outlining a potentially catastrophic vulnerability that could have resulted in the mainnet being brought down at a cost of less than five-figures up until the execution of the Berlin hard fork last month. A May 18 blog post describes the vulnerability as having posed “a severe threat against the Ethereum platform” until April’s upgrades allowed it to dodge the bullet. The report describes the threat as having been an “open secret,” noting that it was once publicly disclosed by mistake. Following the implementation of the Berlin hard fork, the foundation estimated the …