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Updated Jan 26, 2021 at 4:06 p.m. UTC FinCEN Further Extends Comment Period for Controversial Crypto Rules The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is further extending a comment period for a controversial proposed rule that would require crypto exchanges to gather and store counterparty information for transactions to unhosted wallets. FinCEN announced the move Tuesday, saying all comments are due 60 days after the change is submitted to the Federal Register, the U.S. government’s l...

Bubbles Are Good for Bitcoin Over the last few weeks, the price of bitcoin has hit a record high of more than $41,000, blowing past the 2017 bubble high point of $19,783. The price has since declined relatively rapidly, and questions have arisen about what’s next for this latest bubble. This presents an opportune moment to analyze why these bubbles form and what they mean for the future of bitcoin. Price volatility causes market uncertainty and is often viewed as detrimental. However, for bi...

Updated Jan 25, 2021 at 5:08 p.m. UTC CFTC Attorney Who Let Regulators Trade Crypto Joins Private Law Firm Daniel Davis, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) general counsel, is joining Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, a law firm based in Chicago. Davis, who joined the CFTC in 2017 under former Chair Chris Giancarlo, headed the agency’s legal division for four years, overseeing the regulatory agency’s compliance with the law in rulemaking as well as enforcement actions. In 2018, D...

Bitcoin Faces Further Losses Before Rally Restarts, Say Analysts Despite a bounce earlier on Friday, bitcoin may yet see further losses in the near term. Bitcoin prices for the last 24 hours. (CoinDesk 20) Updated Jan 22, 2021 at 2:44 p.m. UTC Bitcoin Faces Further Losses Before Rally Restarts, Say Analysts Bitcoin’s shorter-term price woes are likely not over yet, analysts say, with one predicting a further decline to $26,000. The cryptocurrency fell by 13% on Thursday in a spot market sell-...

Updated Jan 14, 2021 at 3:55 p.m. UTC DC Magistrate Judge Calls Unhosted Wallet ‘Horror Story’ a ‘Fiction’ Federal Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui has learned to stop worrying and love unhosted wallets. “The horror story of unhosted wallets is fiction, not fact,” wrote the judge in a Jan. 6 memorandum opinion for D.C. District Court. He quoted a Coin Center thinkpiece (also named in Strangelovian fashion) on the downside of over-regulating unhosted wallets, then added his own summat...

Updated Jan 12, 2021 at 3:52 p.m. UTC Anchorage Hires Celsius’ Asaf Iram as Head of Risk Digital asset custodian Anchorage has nabbed a trade operations veteran from Celsius Network to manage the risks facing its $4 billion crypto vault. The new hire, Asaf Iram, said he will “connect the dots” among Anchorage’s financing, lending, custody and staking businesses as the leadership team’s first “Head of Risk.” He told CoinDesk his focus will be on ensuring Anchorage’s customers fee...

Total Cryptocurrency Market Value Hits Record $1 Trillion Cryptocurrency total market value Updated Jan 7, 2021 at 3:40 p.m. UTC Total Cryptocurrency Market Value Hits Record $1 Trillion The total value of all cryptocurrencies passed $1 trillion Wednesday for the first time ever, per CoinGecko‘s index of 6,124 assets. At its prior peak in late 2017, the market’s total capitalization was just above $760 billion, according to TradingView. Bitcoin represents roughly 69% of the market’s valu...

Updated Dec 24, 2020 at 1:51 a.m. UTC Ethereum Developer Virgil Griffith Will Likely Face Trial Next September The U.S. government intends to argue that Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith helped North Koreans better understand how crypto could be used to bypass financial sanctions on the nation. Griffith, who was arrested in November 2019 on charges of conspiracy to assist North Korea (DPRK) in using cryptocurrency for its own benefit, is seeking to have the case against him dismissed. While U....

Updated Dec 22, 2020 at 5:24 p.m. UTC Abandon ShipChain! Logistics Startup Torpedoed by SEC Over $27M Unregistered ICO Supply chain startup ShipChain is taking on water fast. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ordered ShipChain to cease and desist operations Monday and pay a $2.05 million penalty for violating securities laws in 2017. ShipChain, which had raised $27.6 million through its SHIP token initial coin offering (ICO), agreed to the penalty and quickly settled the suit. “The...

Updated Dec 24, 2020 at 2:01 a.m. UTC The Blockchain NFT Wars Are Here It’s been a big year for blockchain, highlighted by Eth 2.0, the rise, fall and resurrection of decentralized finance (DeFi) and the real steps towards adoption by institutions like PayPal. But the steady rise of the humble non-fungible token (NFT) has been the real hidden hero. NFTs are little bits of code that extend the fundamental innovation of hard-capped supply, self-custody and censorship-resistance to all digital...