Solana Labs is the latest crypto company to be hit with a lawsuit accusing it of promoting an unregistered security. The class action was filed on July 1 by Roche Freedman LLP and Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky in the district court for the northern district of California on behalf of plaintiff Mark Young, a state resident. The lawsuit accuses Solana Labs, the Solana Foundation, Anatoly Yakovenko, Multicoin Capital Management, Kyle Samani and FalconX of selling unregistered securities tokens in the form of Solana (SOL) from March 24, 2020: “Defendants made enormous profits through the sale of SOL securities to retail …

Staking software and investment firm KeyFi Inc. has filed a complaint against beleaguered crypto-lending firm Celsius, alleging the company had been operating in a Ponzi-style fashion and that it failed to honor a profit-sharing agreement “worth millions of dollars.” The complaint, filed on Thursday, alleges that Celsius has refused to honor a “handshake agreement” in which KeyFi would receive various percentages of the profits it made on Celsius’s behalf via a number staking and decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies. The complaint also accuses Celsius of “negligent misrepresentation” over its risk management controls and “fraud in the inducement” via misleading information of …

Many officials responsible for regulating the United Kingdom’s financial system have resigned following allegations Prime Minister Boris Johnson exercised “poor judgement” in appointing a member of the government. In a letter to Johnson posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Economic Secretary to the Treasury John Glen said his decision to resign was prompted by “recent events concerning the handling of the appointment of the former deputy chief whip” as well as the Prime Minister’s “poor judgment” in addressing the incident. Glen added that “vital reforms" to the country’s financial services were ready to be presented to Parliament. With deep regret I …

The Bank of England has called for “enhanced” regulations of crypto to address potential risk to the country’s financial stability amid the market capitalization dropping more than $2 billion. In the BoE’s Financial Policy Committee "Financial Stability Report — July 2022," the central bank said factors including the growth of the crypto market and climate change did not pose an “immediate threat” to the United Kingdom’s financial system but had the potential to do so in the future. The committee noted that recent events in the space including extreme price volatility among cryptocurrencies, "liquidity mismatches,” weakening investor confidence in stablecoins …

The European Central Bank, or ECB, will reportedly be preparing to implement a new law by warning European Union member states about the necessity of harmonizing regulations for crypto. According to a Sunday report from the Financial Times, the ECB was concerned about the possible regulatory overlap between respective central banks in the EU and crypto companies as officials prepare to implement the Markets in Crypto-Assets, or MiCA, framework. The European Parliament, European Commission and European Council reached an agreement on June 30 to bring crypto issuers and service providers within their jurisdictional control under a single regulatory framework. Regulators …

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, or MAS, has been “carefully considering” adding restrictions that could affect how retail investors handle crypto, according to one of the government’s senior ministers. According to parliamentary records published on Monday, Singapore senior minister and MAS chair Tharman Shanmugaratnam said the financial watchdog may consider “placing limits on retail participation” for crypto investors as well as introducing rules on the use of leverage for crypto transactions. Shanmugaratnam also called for regulatory clarity among financial regulators around the world, “given the borderless nature of cryptocurrency markets.” In January, the MAS barred crypto service providers from advertising …

European Union officials recently agreed on a landmark law called the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCa) framework that provides guidance for crypto asset service providers (CASPs) to operate within the Europe region. Following this, experts reacted with varying opinions, from supporting the decision to explaining how it would have adverse effects. According to Richard Gardner, CEO of trading technology firm Modulus, the new development provides a clearer picture for CASPs as to what is expected by the authorities. Gardner explained that: “Not everything contained in it is going to appeal to all the players, but, at this point, the industry just …

Officials from the European Union have agreed on a landmark law that will make life tougher for crypto issuers and service providers under a new single regulatory framework. Stefan Berger, European Parliament member and rapporteur for the MiCA regulation — the person appointed to report on proceedings related to the bill — broke the news on Twitter, saying that a “balanced” deal had been struck, which has made the EU the first continent with crypto-asset regulation. MiCA Trilog: Durchbruch! Europa ist der erste Kontinent mit einer Krypto-Asset Regulierung. Parlament, Kommission & Rat haben sich auf ausgewogene #MiCA geeinigt. Für mich …

Riccardo Spagni, the former maintainer of the privacy coin Monero (XMR), also known as Fluffypony, faces extradition to South Africa months after his arrest by U.S. authorities. In a Thursday court filing for the Middle District of Tennessee, Magistrate Judge Alistair Newbern ordered Spagni to surrender to U.S. Marshals on July 5 for extradition to South Africa. He will reportedly face 378 charges related to allegations of fraud and forgery between 2009 and 2011 at a company called Cape Cookies. U.S. authorities arrested Spagni in Nashville in July 2021 at the request of the South African government, holding him in …

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, has taken enforcement action against a South African national in what the regulatory body called its “largest fraudulent scheme involving Bitcoin.” In a Thursday announcement, the CFTC said it had filed a civil enforcement action in federal court for fraud and registration violations against Cornelius Johannes Steynberg. The South African national allegedly created and operated a global foreign currency commodity pool totaling more than $1.7 billion, only allowing the participants to pay using Bitcoin (BTC). The CFTC alleged that Steynberg used the South Africa-based firm Mirror Trading International Proprietary Limited to …

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) reported that 11 out of 98 responding jurisdictions have started enforcing its standards on Combating the Financing of Terrorism, or CFT, and Anti-Money Laundering, or AML. In an update released Thursday on the “Implementation of the FATF Standards on Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Service Providers,” the FATF reported the “vast majority” of jurisdictions assessed by the organization’s Global Network since June 2021 “still require major or moderate improvement” in AML/CFT compliance in accordance with the Travel Rule. According to the FATF, countries moving towards implementing these requirements made “limited progress” over the last …

OpenSea, the world’s largest nonfungible tokens (NFT) marketplace, has issued a warning to customers after it was discovered that an employee of Customer.io, a platform for managing email newsletters and campaigns, leaked the list of OpenSea customers’ emails to an outside party. The breach has affected all of the users who have given their email to the marketplace, whether it's for the platform or its newsletter. Following the breach, OpenSea advised customers against potential phishing attempts. The NFT marketplace announced on Thursday that it has contacted law enforcement officials about the breach and that an investigation is in progress. An …