A bi-partisan anti-money laundering (AML) bill that covers “decentralized entities” such as decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and DAOs will soon be reintroduced to Congress, according to United States Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren, a vocal crypto critic, argued at the Feb. 14 Senate Banking Committee’s hearing entitled “Crypto Crash: Why Financial System Safeguards are Needed for Digital Assets” that the crypto community wants decentralized entities running on code to be exempt from AML requirements: “In other words, they want a giant loophole for DeFi written into the law so they can launder money whenever a drug lord or a terrorist pays …

Silvergate Bank and its CEO Alan Lane have been accused of “aiding and abetting” a “multibillion-dollar fraudulent scheme orchestrated by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF)” and two of his entities, FTX and Alameda Research, in a newly proposed class action lawsuit. The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court of the Northern District of California on Feb. 14 by lawyers representing a San Francisco-based FTX user who — just like all other FTX customers — was frozen out of around $20,000 in crypto when the exchange collapsed last year. Plaintiff Soham Bhatia alleges that Silvergate Bank, its parent …

Users of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX have reportedly taken aim at financiers who promoted the platform suggesting their efforts added an “air of legitimacy” to the now-defunct exchange, a case labeled as "tricky" by a crypto lawyer. A Feb. 15 Bloomberg report revealed a class-action suit filed Feb. 14 by FTX investors against venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Paradigm. The firms were accused by the investors of touting “their own investments” of hundreds of millions of dollars in FTX. It was alleged the firms were involved in a promotional marketing campaign in 2021 …

Cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Huobi have again frozen accounts linked to the $100 million Harmony Horizon bridge attack on Jun. 24, 2022. Around $1.4 million worth of crypto frozen by the trading platforms came from accounts linked to the notorious Lazarus Group operating out of North Korea. The investigation was carried out by blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, according to a report shared by the firm on Feb. 14. However, the firm didn’t state what coins or tokens were frozen. Exchanges @binance and @HuobiGlobal today froze accounts containing $1.4 million stolen by North Korea’s Lazarus Group. This was made possible thanks …

The long-awaited scaling upgrade from Ethereum layer-2 solution provider Polygon (MATIC) has been announced, with the Beta launch of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) mainnet slated for Mar. 27. In a Feb. 14 blog post, Polygon said after three and a half months of "battle testing," the system will be ready for the mainnet next month. Roses are red Violets are blue Poems are hard Mainnet Beta is here ON MARCH 27, Polygon #zkEVM launches the future of Ethereum scaling https://t.co/OqSOYTn8Uv pic.twitter.com/kpXavea3ff — Polygon (@0xPolygon) February 14, 2023 It's been touted as “seamless scaling for Ethereum," and was launched …

The official committee of Celsius creditors proposed suing Celsius co-founder Alex Mashinsky and other executives for "fraud, recklessness, gross mismanagement and self-interested conduct" that eventually led to the collapse of the crypto lender. In a proposed complaint filed in a New York Bankruptcy Court on Feb. 14, attorneys representing the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors said the move follows six months of investigations into Celsius’ current and former directors, officers and employees. The committee is made up of seven Celsius account holders and was appointed by the U.S. Trustee in July 2022. The committee represents the interest of Celsius' account …

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) behind Lido — the largest Ethereum staking pool — is deliberating whether it should sell or stake the $30 million in Ether (ETH) from its treasury. A proposal was submitted on Feb. 14 by the DAO’s financial unit, Steakhouse Financial that considers four choices, one of which contemplates staking part or all of its ETH on Lido in the form of Lido Staked ETH (stETH). Another would see LidoDAO selling a part or all of its 20,304 ETH for a stablecoin, with the purpose being to extend the DAO’s runway. The proposal comes as ETH …

Despite attempts to police cryptocurrency through enforcement actions, United States financial regulators “are bound by legal reality” and Congress will ultimately decide crypto regulations the policy expert for the crypto advocacy group Blockchain Association has suggested. The association's chief policy officer, Jake Chervinsky, shared his views in an extensive Feb. 14 Twitter thread on the state of crypto policy. He noted neither the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) “has the authority to comprehensively regulate crypto.” 14/ No matter how many enforcement actions the SEC and CFTC bring, they are bound by legal reality: …

USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has denied rumors that it received a "Wells Notice" over its United States dollar-pegged stablecoin. On Feb. 14, a now-deleted tweet from Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett claimed Circle had been ordered by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to cease the sale of USDC — due to the stablecoin being an unregistered security. Dante Disparte, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy at Circle Pay clarified on Twitter just 15 minutes after Terrett's tweet that his firm has not received a Wells Notice. .@circle has not received a Wells notice. https://t.co/lE74zHVLka — …

Polaris Ventures, a charity created by former FTX and Alameda chief of staff Ruairi Donnelly, reportedly wants to access roughly $150 million earned from insider trading on the bankrupt exchange’s tokens. According to a Feb. 14 Wall Street Journal report, Donnelly received roughly $562,000 in salary during his time at FTX, which was converted into FTX Tokens (FTT) at a rate not yet available to the public — $0.05. The former executive reportedly ‘donated’ the tokens to Polaris Ventures, selling them in 2019 and 2020 after public trading opened at price of $1 and making millions. FTX filed for Chapter …

The crypto industry will “probably” start using euro, yen, or Singapore dollar based stablecoins in the future, reducing its reliance on US dollar based stablecoins, according to a Feb. 14 statement on Twitter Spaces by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, also known as “CZ.” CZ gave the statement in answer to a question about the crypto industry using gold as a standard of value instead of the US Dollar. CZ agreed that it “makes sense” to use gold. However, “most people’s costs are still in fiat currencies.” For this reason, most people calculate their investment returns in dollars, which is why …

The price of Ether (ETH) declined 10.2% between Jan. 8 and Jan. 10, and has since been range trading near the $1,500 level. More importantly, on a broader time frame, Ether is down 52.5% in twelve months, which partially explains why derivatives metrics were somewhat neutral after Ether’s failed attempt to break $1,700 on Feb. 8. Currently, investors' biggest concerns are the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) lawsuits and enforcement actions against crypto firms, which included Kraken’s tanking of its-as-a-service program and PayPal reportedly pausing its stablecoin project due to regulatory concerns. A crackdown by the SEC on crypto …