FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried gave the opening keynote at this year's Blockchain Week, with the events of day one held at the headquarters of the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Addressing the event remotely from the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried used his keynote to announce the launch of FTX Australia, localizing one of the world's largest crypto exchanges by volume. FTX is the naming rights sponsor for the event. “This is something that has been in the works for a number of months, and it’s been a really high priority for us as a company.” Really excited to launch FTX: Australia!https://t.co/ZcBNEuyiG9https://t.co/jGumMSXMW3 https://t.co/rABSI5Y81O — …

On March 11, the United States Department of Labor warned employers that sponsor 401(k) retirement plans to “exercise extreme care” when dealing with cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, even threatening to pay extra legal attention to retirement plans with significant crypto investments. Its rationale is familiar to any crypto investor: The risk of fraud aside, digital assets are prone to volatility and, thus, may pose risks to the retirement savings of America’s workers. On the other hand, we are seeing established players in the retirement market taking steps toward crypto. For one, retirement investment platform ForUsAll decided last year to …

Binance confirmed in an undertaking to the Ontario Securities Commission, or OSC, in Canada dated March 16 that the crypto exchange will cease activities involving Ontario residents. Binance will also stop opening new Ontario accounts and provide fee waivers and fee reimbursements to certain Ontario users under the administration of a third party, the company said. The undertaking appears to mark the end of a disagreement that started in June, when Binance announced that it would no longer service Ontario accounts and customers were advised to close out active positions by the end of the year. The month prior to …

The energy usage and environmental impact of Bitcoin (BTC) mining have been frowned upon and been under the scanner by various international financial institutions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mentions how Bitcoin mining consumes “vast amounts of computing power and electricity.” Bitcoin mining is an energy-consuming process, as it is a proof-of-work (PoW) blockchain network that involves providing cryptographic proof to the network that a quantified amount of a specific computational effort has been used. The information used to verify this is stored in a block to be accepted into the network by other participants. Elon Musk, one of the …

Representative Brad Sherman will be introducing a bill in the House aimed at cracking down on U.S. businesses handling crypto transactions for Russian banks and individuals. Speaking at a hybrid markup meeting with the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, Sherman said he will be introducing a companion bill to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s legislation that would give the Biden administration “explicit authority to require that crypto exchanges that are subject to U.S. law stop facilitating transactions with Russian-based crypto wallets.” Warren first announced the legislation on March 8, later saying during a Senate Banking Committee hearing she will be introducing …

Industry experts and lawmakers who spoke at a hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs clashed on how the country should handle digital assets used for illicit purposes. Speaking remotely in a Thursday hearing on “Understanding the Role of Digital Assets in Illicit Finance”, Michael Chobanian, the founder of Kuna crypto exchange and President of Blockchain Association of Ukraine, called out Binance. He claimed the crypto exchange was “still working with the ruble” and implied the firm was not in compliance with current sanctions against Russia, which has engaged in a military invasion of …

The New Hampshire House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday to adopt the new version of Chapter 12 of the Universal Commercial Code, or UCC, which will govern transfers of digital assets. The chapter is still in draft form, but if HB1503 is signed into law, New Hampshire will be the first U.S. state to adopt the chapter. Like the draft chapter of the UCC, the bill — titled “Exempting the developer, seller, or facilitator of the exchange of an open blockchain token from certain securities laws” — seeks to create a “workaround” to make it easier to buy …

Three individuals who bought cryptocurrency through Coinbase filed a proposed class action March 11 in the Southern District Court of New York alleging that Coinbase is operating as an unregistered securities exchange. The lawsuit lists 79 tokens that it claims are securities Coinbase is selling in violation of state and federal law, and the buyers were not warned of the risks involved in their purchases. The plaintiffs, Christopher Underwood, Louis Oberlander and Henry Rodriguez, represented by Connecticut law firm Silver Golub & Teitell, filed the amended complaint naming Coinbase Global, Coinbase and CEO Brian Armstrong as defendants. The 255-page document …

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced on Wednesday that it had been granted a license to operate in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The company’s presence in the Middle East has been building up lately, with a crypto service provider license in another Gulf market, Bahrain, coming in earlier this week. Under the Dubai virtual asset provider (VASP) license, Binance will be allowed to set up an office in the emirate and provide digital asset exchange services to pre-qualified investors and financial firms under the newly adopted regulatory guidelines. Dubai is one of the seven emirates constituting the federation of the UAE. It …

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine currently based in Kyiv, has signed a law establishing a legal framework for the country to operate a regulated crypto market. In a Wednesday announcement, Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation said Zelenskyy signed a bill named “On Virtual Assets”, first adopted by the country’s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, in February. Crypto exchanges and firms handling digital assets will seemingly be required to register with the government to operate legally in Ukraine, and banks will be allowed to open accounts for crypto firms. The law endows Ukraine’s National Securities and Stock Market Commission with the …

Securities and Exchange Commissioner Allison Herren Lee announced that she would be stepping down from her post at the end of her term in June. In a Tuesday announcement, Lee said that she will remain in the role until her successor has been confirmed. The SEC commissioner has spent less than three years at her current position, having been sworn in in 2019 to serve out the remainder of a five-year term expiring in June. With her departure, Lee, a Democrat who replaced former commissioner Kara Stein, will create a second vacancy at the SEC, with another left open by …

The Financial Monitoring Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan reported earlier today that 55 illegal mining farms “voluntarily stopped their operation” due to an enforcement campaign by the regulator, and another 51 entities’ operations “were terminated.” The enforcement operation targeted illegal mining operations that compromised the nation’s energy network. The Agency called for developing a clear regulatory approach to crypto mining in its release. According to the release, not only had all the targeted operators frozen the mining process, but they also dismantled the rigs and removed them from the “places of deployment.” The release mentioned a number of high-profile …