Only 10 days after announcing he would run for California state governor, long-time Bitcoin proponent and billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya has backed away from the idea in a Feb. 2 episode of The All In Podcast. E20 is here! -- @Jason & @chamath reconcile -- Robinhood wrap up, lessons learned -- Insiders vs. Outsiders -- California's failing report card (& how to fix it) -- @chamath tells his @azizansari story : https://t.co/IFp93HhAly : https://t.co/yw533KnP4J — The All-In Podcast (@theallinpod) February 3, 2021 Palihapitiya, who started investing in Bitcoin in 2012, has been a vocal critic of current California Governor Gavin …

The taxation of cryptocurrency is no longer just a young person’s problem. That changed the day the United States Internal Revenue Service made cryptocurrency a focal point of enforcement and added a crypto disclosure question on its Form 1040. Unsuspecting parents with dependent children should be on guard. The IRS is looking for noncompliance, and crypto questions create a possibly perjurious trap. Noncompliance may be sleeping in the basements of many unwary parents. As of October 2019, nearly 40 million Americans own some form of cryptocurrency, and the average account value is over $5,000. And Google Analytics data shows that …

Ant Group, the financial affiliate of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba, has reportedly reached an agreement with Chinese regulators over the company's status. According to a Feb. 3 report by Bloomberg, Chinese regulators have agreed on a restructuring plan that will turn Jack Ma’s fintech giant into a financial holding company. Ant Group’s new status will reportedly make it subject to capital requirements similar to those for Chinese banks. The agreement will impact a wide scope of Ant’s business operations, including its technology offerings in areas like blockchain and food delivery, unnamed sources told Bloomberg. According to the report, the restructuring …

Another Canadian company has filed an application for a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund, or ETF, amid a renewed interest in crypto ETFs from global financial firms. Accelerate Financial Technologies has filed and obtained a receipt for a preliminary prospectus with Canadian securities regulators for the Accelerate Bitcoin ETF (ABTC). Announcing the news on Feb. 3, Accelerate Financial said that ABTC will offer units denominated in both United States and Canadian dollars. The company has applied to list ABTC units on the Toronto Stock Exchange, with listing being subject to the exchange's requirements. “The TSX has not conditionally approved ABTC's listing …

China has opened testing for its digital yuan. The excitement surrounding this project has electrified several major Chinese cities, as well as onlookers throughout the world. Most recently, Shenzhen launched its “iShenzhen” lottery, wherein the city government will distribute 20 million digital yuan among 100,000 central bank digital currency, or CBDC, wallet holders. This comes on the back of a similar lottery held in the city of Suzhou, one of China’s major “special economic zones.” Suzhou has already engaged with several blockchain projects in an effort to deepen the municipality’s understanding and use of decentralized technology, smart contracts and the …

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev will reportedly testify before the United States House Financial Services Committee over the firm’s role in the volatile trading of GameStop and other volatile stocks. According to a report by the American political publication Politico, Tenev is expected to participate in a virtual hearing headed by Representative Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Feb. 18. Politico’s report cited anonymous people familiar with the matter. Waters officially announced the Financial Services Committee’s plans to hold a GameStop-related hearing on Feb. 18. Entitled “Game Stopped? Who Wins and Loses When Short Sellers, Social Media, and Retail Investors Collide,” the hearing …

On Monday, part one of the Swiss blockchain law covering company reforms went into effect. Back in September 2020, the country’s parliament passed an expanded regulatory framework for crypto and blockchain technology in the country. According to a Swissinfo report, the implementation of the new regulatory paradigm will help to improve Switzerland’s burgeoning crypto and blockchain scene. Indeed, industry stakeholders in the country praised the expanded financial and corporate reforms included in the amended legislation passed by parliament in September 2020. For Hans Kuhn, a board member at digital bank SEBA, the blockchain law establishes Switzerland’s place in the emerging …

Decentralized identity is a function of blockchain technology that delivers real-world benefits to users quickly and easily, allowing them to benefit from things such as easier logins, faster credit checks and an overall smoother online experience. The proliferation of websites, e-commerce hubs and social media platforms means we can all have a huge database of logins, passwords and usernames to remember. As these increase, the use of password managers has become commonplace (as has the use of one-time passwords and two-factor authentication) to effectively allow websites and services to double-check our identity. The result is that the end-user now faces …

The U.S. securities watchdog is looking into the affair of Robinhood and the Redditors. At least in so many words. The Securities and Exchange Commission made a joint statement on Friday expressing concern over the "extreme price volatility of certain stocks’ trading prices over the past several days." Though the commission didn't use the words "GameStop," "Robinhood," or "Reddit," it's obvious that what the commission is talking about is the recent chaos surrounding the three. It's already attracted major regulatory pressure. The SEC did, however, specify: "The Commission will closely review actions taken by regulated entities that may disadvantage investors …

Hundreds of thousands tuned in to a Twitch stream today as U.S. congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez discussed Robinhood’s controversial decision to suspend trading in GameStop after the short squeeze engineered by r/WallStreetBets. Hours earlier, Ocasio-Cortez, who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, slammed Robinhood for favoring the interests of the ultra wealthy at the expense of ordinary investors. “This is unacceptable. We now need to know more about @RobinhoodApp ’s decision to block retail investors from purchasing stock while hedge funds are freely able to trade the stock as they see fit.” The live stream, hosted on Ocasio-Cortez’s personal Twitch …

The crypto lobby is growing as more firms join the effort to fight rules that attack financial privacy. The Blockchain Association today announced the addition of five new members, with membership now totaling 30 firms. The new members are Uniswap, Blockfi, Fireblocks, CMT Digital and Blockchain Capital. In its tweet announcing the news, the Blockchain Association attributed the rise in membership to its work in presenting an industry response to rules from the United States Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, at the tail end of the Donald Trump administration. The association wrote, "Battling back the FinCEN process …

On Dec. 23, 2020, the SEC published a statement proposing a framework for broker-dealers to custody digital asset securities in a manner consistent with Rule 15c3-3 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Among other things, the statement, which will expire after a period of five years from publication, provides that a broker-dealer may custody digital asset securities so long as it operates consistent with the enumerated conditions set forth in the statement, including but not limited to, restricting its business exclusively to digital asset securities, instituting robust written policies and procedures, and ensuring that it has exclusive control over …