Another crypto-skeptic United States senator is on the loose, with Democrat Jon Tester boldly stating that he sees “no reason why” crypto should exist. Tester is the senior senator of Montana and has held a seat there since 2007. He also serves on the Senate Banking Committee, which is one of the key players involved in the ongoing debate over U.S. crypto regulation. During a Dec. 11 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Tester essentially argued that as crypto has no real value at all, the sector shouldn’t be regulated as that would give it legitimacy. “It's not been able …

Since taking over at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), chairman Gary Gensler has repeatedly been referred to as the “bad cop” of the digital asset industry. To this point, over the past 18 months, Gensler has taken an extremely hard-nosed approach toward the crypto market, handing out numerous fines and enforcing stringent policies to make industry players comply with regulations. However, despite his aggressive crypto regulatory stance, Gensler, for the most part, has remained mum about several key issues that digital asset proponents have been talking about for a long time. For example, the SEC has still …

United States federal prosecutors have reportedly begun investigating whether the collapse of the Terra ecosystem was in fact triggered by market manipulation tactics by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. According to a Dec. 7 report from The New York Times (NYT), the prosecutors — as part of a broader inquiry into FTX’s own collapse — are investigating whether Bankman-Fried’s empire intentionally caused a flood of “sell” orders on Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin TerraClassicUSD, USTC (formerly UST). The sudden increase in UST sell orders were said to make it difficult to match them with corresponding “buy” orders, which in turn forced more …

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) has reportedly opened a formal investigation into two proposed contracts that would offer discounted electricity prices to new crypto-mining operations. According to a Dec. 5 statement from environmental law group Earthjustice, the government department would be looking to determine whether subsidizing crypto mining operations will raise electricity costs for Kentucky residents. The two mining contracts under investigation include one between Kentucky Power and Ebon International LLC, which runs a 250-megawatt mining facility in Louisa, as well as mining company Bitki-KY, which operates a 13-megawatt facility in Waverly, Kentucky. The contract proposes to give discounted …

One of the most powerful moments in a new crypto user’s journey happens the first time they send a sizable amount of money to their private wallet. It’s an awe-inspiring, serious moment — and it’s a little scary to experience the power and personal responsibility of the technology firsthand with your own real money. A second powerful moment occurs when the same user is introduced to a block explorer, looks up their address and sees that same transaction there on the blockchain for all to see. There are competing visions of what Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and other cryptocurrencies will …

2022 is nearing an end and might go down as one of the most eventful years for the crypto industry owing to the prolonged winter that had wiped more than 70% of the market cap from the top and the barrage of crypto firms imploding. This was mainly due to internal mismanagement and unchecked decision-making process. Among all the ups and downs, one thing has remained clear — retail customers have lost a significant amount of money due to a lack of regulatory oversight. While lawmakers in the United States promised to bring crypto under regulatory purview many times this …

The state of New York became the first one in the United States to impose a moratorium on proof-of-work (PoW) mining, albeit only for two years. Last week, New York governor Kathy Hochul signed the moratorium into a bill, prohibiting any new mining operations that aren’t based on 100% renewable energy. The renewal of licenses would also be frozen. In eight months, the anti-mining bill made its way from the first passing through the state Assembly to the governor’s pen. The statewide development seems unlucky for New York City mayor Eric Adams, who is focused on making the city a …

In October, Greenland was reported to be exploring the feasibility of an online voting platform for its national elections. Among the options being considered is a blockchain-based system. That isn’t entirely surprising. Electronic voting, or e-voting, has long been viewed as a promising use case for blockchain technology. “It’s time for online voting,” wrote Alex Tapscott in a New York Times opinion piece in 2018. “Using blockchain technology, online voting could boost voter participation and help restore the public’s trust in the electoral process and democracy.” It seems especially timely now as large swaths of the world’s population are raising …

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the American self-regulatory organization, has launched an examination into the firm’s retail communications concerning crypto products and services offered by them. The regulatory body, in an official notice, announced that it is launching a targeted exam on firms on how they handled retail communications between July 1 and the end of September. The decision to examine crypto-related retail communications comes in the wake of the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange. Any written (including electronic) message that is issued or made available to more than 25 retail investors within any 30-day period is referred …

Economic uncertainty amid geopolitical tensions, rising interest rates and slowing economic growth have put a strain on the United States financial system. Reacting to the massive losses reported by the traditional banks in Q2 2022, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) decided to prioritize five key policies this year, which include evaluating the risks of crypto assets to the banking system. Addressing the Senate Banking Committee at a recent hearing , FDIC acting chairman Martin J. Gruenberg highlighted the moderate decline in net income of banks in Q1 and Q2 2022 owing to an increase in loan balances and provision …

Considering that protocol-level censorship is deterrent to the crypto ecosystem's goal of highly open and accessible finance, the community has been keeping track of Ethereum’s growing compliance with standards laid down by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). Over the last 24 hours, the Ethereum network was found to enforce OFAC compliance on over 73% of its blocks. In Oct. 2022, Cointelegraph reported on the rising censorship concerns after 51% of Ethereum blocks were found compliant with OFAC standards. However, data from mevWatch confirmed that the minting of OFAC-compliant blocks on a daily basis has grown to 73% as …

The 2022 midterm elections will be held in the United States on Nov. 8. Thirty-four senators and all 435 members of the House of Representatives will be running. According to media reports, cryptocurrency lobbyists and political action committees have poured millions of dollars into select campaigns, and extensive polling has shown crypto to be on voters’ minds. Fundraising and polling are normal parts of the American political system, but the numbers associated with crypto may have raised some eyebrows. Sam Bankman-Fried called $1 billion his “soft ceiling” for 2022 election contributions, for example. Even though he backpedaled on some of …