The sanctions on cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash has left a vacuum for illicit fund mixing services, but more time is needed before we’ll know the full impact, according to Chainalysis’ chief scientist. During a demo of Chainalysis’ recently launched blockchain analysis platform Storyline, Cointelegraph asked Chainalysis chief scientist Jacon Illum and country manager for Australia and New Zealand Todd Lenfield about the impact of the Tornado Cash ban. Illum said whilst there is still some usage of the mixer, more time was needed to “see what's happening” and how the ”world responds to that designation,” adding that people are trying …

Jerry Sambuaga, the deputy ministry with Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade, has proposed a rule which would require leadership at the country’s crypto exchanges to have more representation from its citizens. In a Tuesday parliamentary meeting which included Indonesian regulatory officials, a letter submitted by Sambuaga suggested several policy changes in response to the “interesting year for the development of physical trading of crypto assets” in the country. Among the proposed rules included a requirement for two-thirds of directors and commissioners at crypto firms to be “Indonesian citizens and domiciled in Indonesia.” A Wednesday report from Bloomberg suggested that the proposed …

On Wednesday, Tether, the issuer of the U.S. dollar-pegged USDT stablecoin, said that a recent order by a U.S. judge to provide evidence of USDT backing is part of routine discovery in court cases. The firm said that the decision did not substantiate any of the claims listed in an ongoing lawsuit: "We had already agreed to produce documents sufficient to establish the reserves backing USDT, and this dispute merely concerned the scope of documents to be produced. As always, we look forward to dispensing with plaintiffs' baseless lawsuit in due course." The lawsuit stemmed from October 2019 and was …

The sanctions imposed by the United States government on Tornado Cash have reignited a public debate on privacy. For many in the relatively young crypto community, such an intervention by the federal government seems groundbreaking. However, tussles between the private sector and the state on the issue of privacy are far from new and can provide compelling insights on what we might expect next for privacy in the crypto industry. In the 1990s, Phil Zimmermann released Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), one of the first openly available public-key cryptography applications that featured end-to-end (E2E) encryption. Zimmerman’s creation prompted a criminal investigation …

A self-styled 23-year-old 'Crypto King' is facing a raft of demands among 140 of his investors as they try to claw back a collective total of $35 million from his company AP Private Equity Limited. According to a Sept. 20 CBC report, creditors are hard at work trying to unravel where all the money they allegedly gave Canadian Aiden Pleterski to make crypto and foreign exchange investments on their behalf ended up. A bankruptcy trustee's report, creditors meeting minutes, court filings, and complaints made to Investigation Counsel PC reveal Pleterski owned 11 vehicles, leased four other luxury cars, regularly flew …

Draft legislation in the United States House of Representatives would place a two-year ban on new algorithmic stablecoins such as TerraClassicUSD (USTC) which de-pegged from the US dollar earlier this year causing widespread crypto market contagion. The bill would criminalize the creation or issuance of new “endogenously collateralized stablecoins,” according to a current draft of the legislation obtained by Bloomberg. However the legislation includes a grace period of two-years for existing algorithmic stablecoin providers to change their models and collateralize their offering differently. The definition would reportedly cover stablecoins which depend on the value of another virtual asset from the …

Intellectual property (IP) rights will continue to be a growing area of tension within Web3 and NFTs, as IP rights often rely on a single "identifiable entity," while Web3 is more often decentralized. Speaking to Cointelegraph, David Kappos, a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP said that IP is traditionally “owned by an identifiable entity, which makes it necessarily centralized from a legal viewpoint.” Kappos suggested that the tension between IP and decentralization does not have a clear solution, asking “how does a DAO really own the IP of the protocol it is supposed to govern?" Over the last …

As the world waits to see America’s take on cryptocurrency regulation, crypto enthusiasts should keep one thing in mind: The industry can trust Senator Cynthia Lummis. Her proposal with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, which we’ve all been waiting for action on, is bipartisan in nature. We’re still awaiting the final details, but things have slowed to a crawl with the November elections around the corner. United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler has moved forward with commentary that suggests the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will take a major role in the oversight of Bitcoin (BTC), which, in and of …

South Korean prosecutors have reportedly requested Interpol intervene in their case against Terra co-founder Do Kwon by issuing a 'Red Notice' — suggesting global law enforcement agencies may attempt to find and detain him. According to a Monday report from the Financial Times, the Seoul Southern District prosecutors’ office said it had “begun the procedure” to place Kwon on Interpol’s Red Notice list following steps to revoke the Terra co-founder’s passport while he was in Singapore. Interpol’s website states that a Red Notice requested authorities “locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action,” but the …

Do Kwon, the co-founder of the Terra ecosystem, took to Twitter on Saturday asserting he’s “not ‘on the run’ or anything similar” after the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said Kwon wasn’t in the city-state. On Sept. 14, South Korean authorities issued an arrest warrant for Kwon and five other associates for alleged violations of the country’s capital markets laws. All were known to be in Singapore at the time, with prosecutors also attempting to revoke their passports a day later on Sept. 15. “For any government agency that has shown interest to communicate, we are in full cooperation and we …

On Sept. 8, Coinbase announced it was bankrolling a lawsuit against the United States Treasury Department. The cryptocurrency exchange is funding a lawsuit brought by six people that challenges the sanctions on Tornado Cash. And on Sept. 9, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler announced he was working hard with Congress to create legislation to increase cryptocurrency regulations. But these two stories are not mutually exclusive. And the sequence of events proves that governments are purely reactive rather than proactive when it comes to decentralized finance (DeFi). Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control …

Despite enforcing a major cryptocurrency ban one year ago, the Chinese government still protects local crypto investors as crypto is recognized as virtual property protected by the law. One of the world’s most hostile countries toward Bitcoin (BTC), China has not yet banned the possession of cryptocurrencies, according to David Lesperance, founder of Lesperance & Associates law firm. Crypto holders in China are protected by the law in case of theft, misappropriation or breach of a loan agreement, Lesperance told Cointelegraph. He emphasized that crypto exchanges are still banned in China. The lawyer referred to a recent Chinese court case …