Draft legislation in the United States House of Representatives would place a two-year ban on new algorithmic stablecoins such as TerraClassicUSD (USTC) which de-pegged from the US dollar earlier this year causing widespread crypto market contagion. The bill would criminalize the creation or issuance of new “endogenously collateralized stablecoins,” according to a current draft of the legislation obtained by Bloomberg. However the legislation includes a grace period of two-years for existing algorithmic stablecoin providers to change their models and collateralize their offering differently. The definition would reportedly cover stablecoins which depend on the value of another virtual asset from the …

Elizabeth Rosenberg, the assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the United States Department of the Treasury, suggested sanctioning cryptocurrency mixers could help strengthen the government’s response to foreign entities looking to use digital assets for illicit means. In a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Banking Committee covering sanctions on Russia, Rosenberg said having the Treasury Department add crypto mixers like Blender.io or Tornado Cash to its list of Specially Designated Nationals could be an effective way to signal the U.S. government was acting to prevent entities from circumventing sanctions. “When [sanctions] can serve as a deterrent to …

The cryptocurrency bear market has had an impact on how people pay with crypto, but Bitcoin (BTC) remains a major payment tool despite huge volatility, according to data from BitPay. The share of Bitcoin payments in the total BitPay transactions has been shrinking amid the ongoing cryptocurrency winter, but it’s still the most popular cryptocurrency for payments on the platform. The sales volumes of Bitcoin-based payments on BitPay accounted for as much as 87% last year and dropped to 52% in the first quarter of 2022 amid the bear market, BitPay’s vice president of marketing Merrick Theobald told Cointelegraph. In …

A new bill demanding a congressional notification prior to payments of the United States Department of State (DOS) rewards using cryptocurrencies surfaced as the U.S. Congress raised concerns about the evasion of sanctions. The Rewards for Justice Program, a counterterrorism rewards program run by the Secretary of State, offers rewards for information that prevents international terrorism. Citing examples of Russia and Belarus as previously sanctioned regimes that have used cryptocurrencies to circumvent sanctions, the bill H. R. 7338 demands that: “The Secretary of State shall notify the appropriate congressional committees not later than 15 days before paying out a reward …

By the end of last week, the federal agencies presented the results of their six-month-long work on the principal directions for digital assets regulation in the United States. The resulting first-ever crypto framework, published on the White House website, may not contain many surprises or exact details, but, as a part of President Joe Biden’s executive order, it will undoubtedly affect the policymaking decisions to come. Perhaps the most important section of the framework is dedicated to central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). It revealed that the administration has already developed policy objectives for a U.S. CBDC system, but further research …

As the world waits to see America’s take on cryptocurrency regulation, crypto enthusiasts should keep one thing in mind: The industry can trust Senator Cynthia Lummis. Her proposal with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, which we’ve all been waiting for action on, is bipartisan in nature. We’re still awaiting the final details, but things have slowed to a crawl with the November elections around the corner. United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has moved forward with commentary that suggests the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will take a major role in the oversight of Bitcoin (BTC), which, in and of …

The United States Department of the Treasury will be calling for comments from the public on digital assets, including their views on how regulations may address illicit uses of crypto. In a document set to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury requested public comment on “digital-asset-related illicit finance and national security risks as well as the publicly released action plan to mitigate the risks” related to President Joe Biden’s executive order on crypto from March. The department invited the public to share their thoughts on what regulatory obligations the U.S. government had imposed that were …

The crypto market turmoil entered the third week of September as most of the cryptocurrencies started the week on a bearish note. The total crypto market cap dipped below $1 trillion again, with several cryptocurrencies recording a double-digit downfall over the past 24 hours. The ongoing bearish turmoil has led to nearly half a billion in liquidations for the leverage crypto traders over the past 24 hours. Data from Coinglass highlight that 130,087 traders were liquidated with a total liquidations value of $431.51 million. Bitcoin (BTC) leverage traders lost $44.5 million, followed by Ether (ETH) traders with a total liquidation …

On Sept. 8, Coinbase announced it was bankrolling a lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department. The cryptocurrency exchange is funding a lawsuit brought by six people that challenges the sanctions on Tornado Cash. And on Sept. 9, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler announced he was working hard with Congress to create legislation to increase cryptocurrency regulations. But these two stories are not mutually exclusive. And the sequence of events proves that governments are purely reactive rather than proactive when it comes to decentralized finance (DeFi). Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control …

As directed by the President of the United States, Joe Biden, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) submitted a report analyzing the design choices for 18 central bank digital currency (CBDC) systems for possible implementation in the US. The technical analysis of the 18 CBDC design choices was made across six broad categories — participants, governance, security, transactions, data and adjustments. The OSTP foresees technical complexities and practical limitations when trying to build a permissionless system governed by a central bank, adding: “It is possible that the technology underpinning a permissionless approach will improve significantly over time, which …

Members of the crypto space and advocacy groups reacted to United States President Joe Biden’s administration releasing a regulatory framework on digital assets, with many suggesting the White House focused on the potential negative aspects of crypto. In a Friday announcement, the White House said that federal agencies and departments had submitted 9 reports as required by Biden’s executive order on crypto from March. Among the information in the fact sheet included policy objectives for a U.S. central bank digital currency, ways to mitigate the possible impact of crypto’s energy usage on the climate, and regulatory aims for enforcement actions, …

Following United States President Joe Biden’s executive order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets, federal agencies came up with a joint fact sheet on six principal directions for the crypto regulation in the U.S. It sums up the content of nine separate reports, which have been submitted to the President to “articulate a clear framework for responsible digital asset development and pave the way for further action at home and abroad.” The fact sheet was published on the White House official website on Sept. 16, and consists of seven sections: (1) Protecting Consumers, Investors, and Businesses; (2) Promoting Access …