Members of the crypto community have been up in arms recently about the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that the United States House of Representatives was expected to vote on this week. The legislation includes a crypto-tax reporting provision, along with the establishment of a definition for the term “broker.” House lawmakers stated that a vote for the infrastructure bill would take place on Thursday, Sept. 30, yet Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi announced on Sept. 29 that the infrastructure bill vote would be delayed beyond Thursday. Media sources have since noted that the infrastructure bill could be voted on during Friday, Oct. …

Later today, the United States House of Representatives is expected to vote on the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, a bill authorizing sweeping investments in domains such as passenger rail, bridge repair, clean and wastewater facilities, clean energy transmission, and universal access to high-speed internet. Also tucked into the massive bill are several provisions that would directly affect millions of crypto users if enacted, particularly the expanded tax reporting requirements for entities handling cryptocurrency transactions. Neither the bill becoming law nor even the Sept. 30 House vote on the bill is warranted. The legislation is working through …

CoinEx cryptocurrency exchange is winding down operations in mainland China to comply with local anti-crypto regulations. The company officially announced on Thursday that it was going to completely retire user accounts verified as mainland China citizens as well as those linked to a mobile phone number from mainland China. The exchange has asked mainland China-based users to withdraw their crypto assets from the platform before Oct. 31, 2021. CoinEx then plans to disable accounts with zero assets starting from Thursday, Sept. 30. “All access will no longer be available to your accounts,” the exchange stated. Despite CoinEx’s aggressive measures to …

The judge in the class-action lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York against stablecoin issuer Tether and crypto exchange Bitfinex has granted motions to dismiss many of the claims in the case. According to court documents filed Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, District Judge Katherine Polk Failla has granted motions from Tether’s and Bitfinex’s parent company iFinex to dismiss key claims in the plaintiffs’ case that the two firms manipulated the crypto market. Altogether, Judge Failla granted motions to dismiss five complete claims and part of one, while denying six others. Specifically, the judge said …

Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea is once again listing the Polygon-based copy of CryptoPunks after a successful Digital Millennium Copyright Act counter-notice. In a Tuesday announcement on Twitter, the PolygonPunks project said its NFT collectibles were back on OpenSea after responding to a DMCA takedown notice from Larva Labs, the creator of CryptoPunks. The punks were booted from OpenSea in August after becoming one of the most popular collections on the marketplace. PolygonPunks ARE BACK ON @Opensea!!! The DMCA counter notice to Larva Labs was successful We have resumed trading on the largest NFT marketplace in the world We look …

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission is ordering crypto exchange Kraken to pay more than $1 million in civil monetary penalties related to allegations the exchange is violating the Commodity Exchange Act. In a Tuesday statement, the CFTC said U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken — operating under the name Payward Ventures — has failed to register as a futures commission merchant and is illegally offering margined retail commodity transactions in digital assets. The order requires the exchange to pay a penalty of $1.25 million and “cease and desist from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act,” the law under which …

Dan Berkovitz, one of three commissioners currently serving at the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will be joining the Securities and Exchange Commission as general counsel following his departure in October. In a Tuesday announcement, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, said Berkovitz would assume the role of general counsel starting on Nov. 1, two weeks after stepping down as a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, where he has served since 2018. Berkovitz said he will be working with SEC chair Gary Gensler on a “regulatory agenda that will enhance investor protection.” Though his …

The United Stat Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a complaint against two Robinhood users over an alleged wash-trading-based arbitrage scheme that utilized meme stocks. According to a complaint on Monday, defendants Suyun Gu and Yong Lee took advantage of differing trading fee schedules offered by different retail brokers and exchanges to extract arbitrage while wash-trading. By trading between venues that offer rebates to market makers and those that do not charge fees to market takers, the SEC estimates they generated more than $1.5 million worth of rebates in total through the alleged wash-trading scheme. Gu and Lee are believed …

In the wake of yet another iteration of China’s enduring crackdown on cryptocurrency, a particularly influential narrative on Crypto Twitter suggests that by banning Bitcoin (BTC), China has definitively put itself on the dark side of the struggle, while the collective West must now resolutely throw its weight on the opposite side by embracing crypto. Granted, this framework for thinking about the relationship between political power and decentralized finance is appealing for crypto allies. Yet the news coming out of the United States gives few reasons to believe that policymakers there see the situation this way. It appears that U.S. …

On September 17, a group of officials led by U.S. attorney Tracy Wilkinson have filed a civil complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California claiming that they have identified four digital wallets holding more than 9.8 million Tether (USDT) that was involved in wire fraud, computer fraud and money laundering. According to court documents, the legitimate owner of the funds is a California resident who in April 2021 got swindled out of more than 200 Bitcoin (BTC) by someone impersonating a Coinbase employee. Customer support goes awry As described in the claim, the unidentified …

The Biden administration reportedly intends to nominate Kazakhstani-American attorney, academic and former policy advisor Saule Omarova to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — the institution that oversees the United States banking sector. Omarova has levied criticisms at both crypto assets and the legacy banking sector in the past, having once pledged to “end banking as we know it.” She has characterized cryptocurrency as “benefiting mainly the dysfunctional financial system we already have.” According to a Wednesday report from Bloomberg citing three anonymous sources “familiar with the nomination process,” Omarova could be nominated as soon as this …

Last week, some former users of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Cryptsy received a notice informing them of a new turn in the ongoing class settlement process. Authorized by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the document states that those who were defrauded in the 2016 collapse of the digital finance platform may be entitled to receive money from additional recovery. Cryptsy was a crypto exchange that went bust in January 2016 following months of user-reported issues with withdrawing funds from the platform. The court later found that Cryptsy founder Paul Vernon had stolen millions of …