Author: Jesse Hamilton

Wall Street bankers are arguing that the Federal Reserve launching its own digital dollar could crack the foundations of banking as we know it, according to letters that industry lobbyists sent to the U.S. central bank.

Former U.S. Treasury official and Ripple adviser Michael Barr fielded questions about crypto at his Senate nomination hearing.

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration will press Congress to demand cryptocurrency exchanges keep their customers’ money separate from their own corporate funds, according to a person familiar with the plan that could constrain the way the industry does business.

Gary Gensler, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, made a pitch for a higher budget Wednesday, telling lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives that he wants to do more as a cop on the cryptocurrency beat. He cited the collapse of TerraUSD (UST) as evidence for the need to better protect crypto investors.

FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried spent hours before U.S. lawmakers Thursday defending his request to allow customers to directly clear margin-backed crypto derivatives. The existing derivatives industry and its allies argued he’s seeking a power that could stretch well beyond crypto.

Sen. Pat Toomey, the Banking Committee’s top Republican, doesn’t want asset-backed stablecoins tarnished by the UST drama.

As one of crypto world’s major stablecoins – TerraUSD (UST) – slid toward disaster this week, it hasn’t triggered any meetings of U.S. government officials. Despite the recent federal stance that stablecoins could pose a rising threat to the U.S. financial system, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) hasn’t gathered to weigh the potential hazards from UST, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen focused on the ongoing distress of stablecoin UST during testimony before a U.S. Senate panel on Tuesday, just hours after the purportedly dollar-pegged token plummeted to a low of $0.65 and at least one platform halted trading.

The U.S. government again named stablecoins as a potential threat to the stability of the financial system, with both the Federal Reserve and a senior Treasury official saying Monday that the tokens are vulnerable to runs.

The three co-founders, Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed, must each pay $10 million, the CFTC said.

A federal judge ordered the three co-founders of BitMEX to pay $30 million total for operating an illegal cryptocurrency derivatives platform and violating money-laundering rules, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Thursday.

U.S. lawmakers have set a hearing to examine the potential can of worms opened by cryptocurrency trading platform FTX when it applied with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to directly clear its customers’ margin-backed swaps transactions.

FTX’s application to allow for direct clearing of customers’ derivatives transactions has inspired the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to weigh such “non-intermediated” trading in a public roundtable next month.

Stablecoins should have the same kind of standard-setting initiative previously seen in setting up common web practices in the early days of the internet, said Acting U.S. Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu.

Another top aide to former President Donald Trump is joining the Swiss crypto startup, Astra Protocol. Ex-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen has been hired as an adviser right on the heels of former Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney.

FalconX became the first crypto native firm to formally register as a U.S. swap dealer this month, and the startup’s chief executive officer, Raghu Yarlagadda, sees a massive, underserved market.

U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman sent a letter along with almost two dozen other congressional Democrats to the Environmental Protection Agency chief, asking him to devote additional scrutiny to potential harm cryptocurrency mining may cause to the climate and environment.

The proposal from FTX.US on directly clearing its customers’ derivatives is said to be the focus of a May 23 public roundtable hosted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Lawyers and lobbyist for the cryptocurrency industry have raised objections to Securities and Exchange Commission proposals that could formally expand crypto oversight. The comment deadline arrived Monday for the first of those rule that amplifies the scope of how the agency defines exchanges.

President Joe Biden named former crypto industry adviser Michael Barr as his latest pick for a Federal Reserve post that’s arguably the most powerful financial regulator job in the U.S.