The United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service, has conducted an internal audit of the way in which it carries out crypto-related investigations and found there’s significant room for improvement. Notably, the USPIS handled only a small number of crypto-related cases during the two fiscal years under review — 2019 and 2020 — with a total of four closed cases for which postal inspectors seized crypto as evidence during an investigation and nine other cases that were managed under the USPIS’ “Cryptocurrency Fund Program,” established back in 2017. This program was intended …

In an interview with Fox Business released on Tuesday, former United States President Donald Trump was questioned about his views on the health of the Wall Street markets, the current administration's progress and the potential of Bitcoin (BTC) and the cryptocurrency market. In response to the latter question, the former president stated: “I like the currency of the United States. I think the others are potentially a disaster waiting to happen.” He continued: “They [cryptocurrencies] may be fake. Who knows what they are? They are certainly something that people don’t know very much about.” He also spoke on protecting the …

Amid El Salvador preparing to officially enforce the country’s Bitcoin Law in early September, Salvadorans took to the streets to protest over the adoption of Bitcoin (BTC) as an official currency. El Salvador’s anti-Bitcoiners have expressed discontent regarding the government’s plans to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, with hundreds of protesters marching through the capital, San Salvador, last Friday, Euronews TV network reported. The demonstrators — including retirees, veterans, disability pensioners and workers — voiced their concerns over Bitcoin’s unstable price. The crowd was worried that the government would start paying their pensions in Bitcoin instead of the United States …

Although the cryptocurrency sector may still be considered the “Wild West” by some governments and regulators, continued adoption and emerging use cases show that digital currencies are here to stay. Some even argue that blockchain-based networks and decentralized finance, or DeFi, platforms may soon replace traditional financial systems. Yet despite ongoing progress, the crypto industry is still young and, therefore, requires further development before it can be widely accepted. One area in particular that needs deeper addressing within the crypto space is regulation. Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz — a German multinational financial services company — stated in …

On August 10, the United States Senate voted to pass a $1 trillion bill to revitalize America’s infrastructure. From the standpoint of the crypto community, miners in particular, the Senate’s foray into crypto legislation has been a disaster. Unless the language defining brokers in the bill is clarified, it will singlehandedly thwart the growth of a domestic industry just as it is taking off. As written, the bill allows for multiple interpretations of the term “broker.” In the English language, there is no real controversy — or ambiguity — about what a broker does. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, a …

“One of the greatest tragedies in life,” according to author K. L. Toth, “is to lose your own sense of self and accept the version of you that is expected by everyone else.” For the people of Afghanistan — almost 40 million of them — the loss of self, as well as the loss of life, has become a brutal reality. With the Taliban in control, chaos now reigns supreme. As businesses shut down, tens of thousands of people are desperately trying to flee the country. Moreover, as the political system collapses, so too does the financial one. As CNBC’s …

The entire cryptocurrency industry is waking up to a new reality. Politicians and regulators have decided to wade into the space, which had flown mainly under their radar until now. A House committee chair is launching a working group; the Securities and Exchange Commission is seeking new authorities to regulate digital assets as securities; and the Senate-passed infrastructure bill includes $28 billion in tax revenues from crypto transactions. This last handful of weeks has arguably seen more regulatory activity around digital currencies since the name Satoshi Nakamoto first entered the popular lexicon. Anyone whose business deals in this asset class …

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly signed a $125,000 deal with blockchain analytics firm AnChain.AI to help monitor and regulate the decentralized finance industry. According to a Friday report from Forbes, an AnChain.AI company spokesperson confirmed the agreement with the federal regulator, saying the SEC and blockchain firm had the option to sign up to five separate 1-year contracts for $125,000 each, or $625,000 total. The first contract reportedly began in May. “The SEC is very keen on understanding what is happening in the world of smart contract-based digital assets,” said AnChain.AI CEO and co-founder Victor Fang. “We …

The latest news has left the decentralized finance community in a collective fetal position. Responding to the threat of increased regulatory oversight, leading decentralized exchange Uniswap recently restricted the trading of certain tokens. Earlier in July, Dan M. Berkovitz, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that DeFi derivatives platforms might contravene the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA): “Not only do I think that unlicensed DeFi markets for derivative instruments are a bad idea, but I also do not see how they are legal under the CEA.” Most worrisome of all is the initial version of the United States …

When does decentralization stop being an experiment in technological democracy and start being a way to avoid accountability? That’s the question at the heart of a potential $100 million arbitration lawsuit against cryptocurrency exchange Binance, where close to 1,000 traders seek damages for losses suffered during the site’s outage on May 19. Binance experienced technical issues for several hours on May 19 amid one of the worst market crashes of the year as the global cryptocurrency market suffered a 33% drop. Traders were unable to execute trades for the duration of Binance’s outage, and many found their accounts depleted when …

Sweeping legislation allowing officials from the Australian Federal Police and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to target suspected criminals online has passed through the country’s parliament with bipartisan support. On Aug. 25, the Identify and Disrupt bill passed through Australia’s Senate, introducing three new warrants allowing authorities to take unprecedented action against suspected cybercriminals. The new warrants authorize police to hack the personal computers and networks of suspected criminals, seize control of their online accounts and identities, and disrupt their data. Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews praised the broad expansion of powers available to Australian authorities targeting cyber actors. “Under our …

Digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future has publicly called out Alabama lawmaker Richard Shelby for preventing an amendment clarifying the role of crypto in the infrastructure bill to be addressed in the United States Senate. Fight for the Future has used donations it received in cryptocurrency to place a billboard in Birmingham, Alabama asking lawmakers not to support measures it believes would harm crypto and blockchain firms. Shelby, one of two senators representing Alabama since 1987, objected to the introduction of a crypto amendment to infrastructure bill HR 3684 that was under consideration in the Senate at the …