Winklevoss brothers’ cryptocurrency exchange Gemini continues expanding in Europe, announcing new regulatory approvals in Italy and Greece. Gemini has registered as a virtual currency operator with Italy’s payments services regulator, the Organismo Agenti E Mediatori (OAM), the firm announced on Nov. 30. The crypto exchange has also received registration as a custodial wallet provider and provider of virtual currency exchange with Greece’s Hellenic Capital Markets Commission (HCMC). According to official data, the OAM registration was issued on Nov. 3, while the HCMC granted its approval to Gemini on Nov. 7. The new registrations, combined with Gemini’s electronic money institution authorization …

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been called to a Feb. 2 hearing by the Texan securities regulator as part of an investigation into whether he and FTX US have violated Texas securities laws. In a Notice of Hearing signed off by Texas State Securities Board’s (SSB’s) director of enforcement Joe Rotunda and served to Bankman Fried on Nov. 29, the regulator alleges that FTX US offered unregistered securities to Texans through its “EARN” accounts. The investigation was first announced on Oct. 14, before the dramatic collapse and bankruptcy of FTX’s global operations. The regulator announced at the time it …

Ron Wyden, chair for the United States Senate Finance Committee, has requested information from six crypto firms on consumer protection following FTX’s liquidity issues and bankruptcy. In separate letters dated on Nov. 28, Wyden targeted Binance, Coinbase, Bitfinex, Gemini, Kraken and KuCoin, requesting information on what protections the exchanges had in place if a failure like the one that happened at FTX occurred. The senator said that crypto users who had funds with FTX had “no such protections” like those at banks or registered brokers under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or Securities Investor Protection Corporation. “As Congress considers much-needed …

Bankman-Fried has openly admitted that FTX loaned customer deposits to Alameda Research, FTX’s sister hedge fund, although he has characterized this as a mistake that was caused by “confusing internal labeling.” FTX’s terms of service explicitly state that customer funds will never be lent to other financial institutions or used by FTX for proprietary trades. Sam publicly stated in a now-deleted tweet, “We don’t invest client assets (even in treasuries).” The broader crypto markets have bled red in response, and other industry stalwarts now face insolvency risk with the contagion spreading to Genesis, Grayscale and many other firms that held …

The United States House Financial Services Committee has announced it will be holding a hearing to investigate the events around the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. In a Nov. 28 announcement, House Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters said lawmakers had scheduled a hearing aimed at exploring the collapse of FTX for Dec. 13. The hearing, expected to be “Part I” in perhaps a series of hearings around the impact of a major crypto exchange declaring bankruptcy, was first announced on Nov. 16 but not scheduled. Following the fall of FTX, the urgent need for legislation has never been greater. …

The United States Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, has announced a settlement with crypto exchange Kraken for “apparent violations of sanctions against Iran.” In a Nov. 28 announcement, OFAC said Kraken had agreed to pay more than $362,000 as part of a deal “to settle its potential civil liability” related to violating the United States’ sanctions against Iran. The U.S.-based crypto exchange will also be investing $100,000 into sanctions compliance controls as part of the agreement with Treasury. “Due to Kraken’s failure to timely implement appropriate geolocation tools, including an automated internet protocol (IP) address blocking …

The Japanese messaging giant Line has decided to shut down its cryptocurrency exchange business amid the ongoing crypto winter. Line-owned crypto exchange Bitfront officially announced on Nov. 27 a plan to completely close down the platform by March 2023. According to the statement, the closure was driven by the continued cryptocurrency bear market and other issues in the crypto industry. Despite the exchange’s closure, Line will still continue to run its other blockchain ventures, including the Line blockchain ecosystem and Link (LN) token, the announcement notes, stating: “Despite our efforts to overcome the challenges in this rapidly-evolving industry, we have …

However, the crypto space is notoriously fickle, and the collapse of once-established companies such as Celsius and FTX are stark examples of how people can lose billions of dollars in crypto assets almost overnight. For this reason, celebrity influencers should be thoroughly educated on a crypto product before promoting it. With so much at stake, this is a point that shouldn’t be overlooked by anyone in the industry. Because of these huge risks, regulators are now asking questions regarding the ethics of celebrities using their considerable pull to draw people into crypto. And they’re not stopping at that; more jurisdictions …

Many of the centralized cryptocurrency platforms that collapsed this year had something in common: a young, outspoken and cocky leader. Each gained outsized influence not by virtue of outsized intellect or talent but because of their piles of money and large Twitter followings. And each time, misplaced trust in their abilities resulted in disastrous consequences. If crypto wants to avoid similar catastrophes in the future, it’s time for us to rearrange our leadership priorities. We need to ditch the cults of personality. The theater of crypto on Twitter Before FTX collapsed, founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) had garnered a reputation as …

In October, Toronto-based Coinsquare became the first crypto trading business to get dealer registration from the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). That means a lot as now Coinsquare investors’ funds enjoy the security of the Canadian Investment Protection Fund in the event of insolvency, while the exchange is required to report its financial standing regularly. This news reminds us about the peculiarities of Canadian regulation of crypto. While the country still holds a rather tight process of licensing the virtual asset providers, it outpaces the neighboring United States in its experiments with crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), pension funds’ …

While regulations are often aimed at protecting citizens from bad actors, the effectiveness of crypto regulations in the United States is in question owing to the colossal fall of major exchanges and ecosystems over the past year — FTX, Celsius, Voyager, and Terra (LUNA). Congressman Tom Emmer showed concerns about the oversight strategy implemented by Gary Gensler, the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the crypto ecosystem. Emmer has been vocal against Gensler's “indiscriminate and inconsistent approach” toward crypto oversight. On March 16, the Congressman revealed being approached by numerous crypto and blockchain firms that believed …

The cryptocurrency tide is flowing out, and it looks more and more like Digital Currency Group (DCG) has been skinny dipping. But let’s be clear: The current crypto contagion isn’t a failure of crypto as a technology or long-term investment. DCG’s problem is one of failure by regulators and gatekeepers. Since its 2013 inception, DCG’s Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), the largest Bitcoin (BTC) trust in the world, has offered investors the ability to earn a high rate of interest — above 8% — simply by purchasing cryptocurrency and lending it to or depositing it with DCG. In many ways, the …