Lael Brainard, a member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, encouraged the United States to be a leader in research and policy regarding central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, due to potential international developments. In remarks prepared for the U.S Monetary Policy Forum in New York on Friday, Brainard said the People's Bank of China’s pilot program for its digital yuan could have implications on the dollar’s dominance in cross-border payments and payment systems. However, a digital dollar could allow people around the world to continue to rely on its fiat counterpart. “It is prudent to consider how the …

The Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC, has approved rules which would ban senior officials at the Federal Reserve from purchasing and holding cryptocurrencies and other investments. In a Friday announcement, the FOMC said that starting on May 1, senior Federal Reserve officials already working at the agency would have one year to “dispose of all impermissible holdings,” while new officials would have six months to do so. The new rules specify that Fed senior officials, which include Reserve Bank first vice presidents and research directors, FOMC staff officers, the System Open Market Account manager and deputy manager, Board division …

“DAOs are very powerful token-based coordination mechanism that any person now can wield outside of the legacy financial system”, said Silke Noa, core-member of the AssangeDAO, which recently raised $53 million in support of Wikileak's founder, Julian Assange. According to Noa, the fundraising campaign was "a huge success" that showed how the power of a DAO can have an impact on political and social issues. The DAO mechanism allowed anyone willing to support Assange's to make a donation in ETH and become a member of the organization. In exchange, AssangeDAO members received a proportional amount of governance tokens, JUSTICE, which …

Four members of the Wyoming Legislature have sponsored a bill which would allow the state treasurer to issue a stablecoin. On Thursday, Wyoming State Senators Chris Rothfuss and Tara Nethercott with House Representatives Jared Olsen and Mike Yin introduced Senate File SF0106, titled the “Wyoming Stable Token Act.” If signed into law, the bill would authorize the treasurer to issue a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin redeemable for fiat held in an account by the state. The state treasurer — Curtis Meier at the time of publication — would consult with the department’s Investment Funds Committee and have the authority to hire …

The White House will reportedly be issuing an executive order as early as next week directing government agencies to study different aspects of the digital asset space with the goal of creating a comprehensive regulatory framework. In a Thursday report from Yahoo! Finance, Jennifer Schonberger said an official familiar with the matter within the Biden administration revealed the executive order could arrive as soon as next week. The directive from President Biden would reportedly order the Office of the Attorney General, the State Department, and the Treasury Department to study the potential rollout of a U.S.-issued central bank digital currency. …

Gary Gensler, chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has responded to a letter from lawmakers calling the regulator denying approval of Bitcoin spot exchange-traded funds “unacceptable.” In a Tuesday letter from Gensler addressed to Minnesota Representative Tom Emmer, the SEC chair hinted that the regulatory body was no closer to approving a Bitcoin (BTC) spot ETF in the United States capable of preventing “fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices” by the standards of the Exchange Act. Gensler reiterated his stance of being technology-neutral, but that he would give “careful consideration” to the concerns Emmer raised in November. We …

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco has announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation will be increasing efforts to address enforcement in the digital asset space with the formation of a new team. Speaking at the Munich Cyber Security Conference on Thursday, Monaco said the FBI was creating a “specialized team dedicated to cryptocurrency” called the Virtual Asset Exploitation Unit. The unit will include crypto experts and as well have the means for blockchain analysis that may eventually be used to track and seize illicit funds. The formation of the FBI team comes more than four months after Monaco announced …

Jared Polis, the governor of Colorado, has announced that the state government plans to allow residents to pay taxes in cryptocurrencies as early as summer 2022. In a Tuesday CNBC interview, Polis said crypto holders in Colorado could have the option of sending tax payments in digital currency, which the state would then convert back into fiat. The governor said that an unnamed intermediary would likely handle the exchange of crypto to fiat. “We expect by this summer — pretty soon — to accept crypto for all of our state tax-related purposes,” said Polis. “Then we plan to roll that …

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reportedly launched a probe into major crypto exchange Binance's U.S. arm regarding trading firms connected to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. According to a Tuesday report from the Wall Street Journal, the SEC is looking into the relationship between Binance.US and trading firms Sigma Chain AG and Merit Peak. The federal regulator has reportedly requested information from the U.S. crypto exchange on the two companies, and is investigating how it may have disclosed its potential links to the market makers to users. The news outlet reported that corporate documents from 2019 as well as …

Members of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee have reportedly divided along party lines regarding President Joe Biden’s pick of Sarah Bloom Raskin as vice chair for supervision for the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve. According to a Tuesday report from Reuters, Senator Pat Toomey, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said he had asked the 12 Republican senators on the committee to not attend a meeting in which members were expected to vote on President Biden’s nominees for the Fed. Toomey reportedly said that Democratic leadership can proceed with “five of the six nominees” put forth …

House Financial Services Committee member and New Jersey Representative Josh Gottheimer has introduced legislation which would have the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation back stablecoins in a similar manner to fiat deposits. In a draft of the Stablecoin Innovation and Protection Act of 2022 released on Tuesday, Gottheimer proposed labeling stablecoins issued by insured depository institutions or certain nonbank issuers as “qualified.” Under this definition, the bill suggests “qualified stablecoins” are neither securities or commodities under U.S. law, and redeemable on demand from the issuer. In cases of nonbank issuers, the legislation would require the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, …

The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, kicked off on Feb. 4 in Beijing with crypto being a major part of the event, partly because of the Chinese government’s digital currency ambitions. The cryptocurrency community hasn’t had strong ties to the Olympics over the last few years. The last major headline-grabbing interaction was when the Dogecoin (DOGE) community helped fund the Jamaican bobsled team in 2014 so they could attend the event in Sochi. The 2022 Winter Olympics, however, are making history due to the presence of nonfungible tokens (NFTs), Bitcoin- (BTC)-supported athletes, the launch of …