The White House has officially submitted President Joe Biden’s nominations to fill two seats at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with the upcoming departure of another commissioner. In a Friday announcement, the White House said it had sent Citi managing director Caroline Pham’s and Summer Mersinger’s names to the Senate for confirmation. Mersinger previously served as chief of staff to commissioner Dawn Stump — who is expected to leave the agency this year — as well as the director of the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs. She and Pham will be taking the places of recently departed commissioner Dan …

Based in Vancouver, Dapper Labs offers a variety of NFT based products and dapps. These include games like CryptoKitties, where players can breed and raise NFT kittens, and Cheeze Wizards, a tournament series where collectible characters can duel each other. Additionally, Dapper Labs is partnered with the NBA and is responsible for Top Shot, an NFT marketplace that sells highlights from basketball games. The UFC has also partnered with Dapper Labs to offer a similar service in the near future. According to the announcement, Dapper Labs has recruited Crossroads Strategies as their lobbying firm. The company reported that it would …

Newly sworn-in New York City Mayor Eric Adams is already using his influence to publicly speak about buying the recent Bitcoin dip. In a Thursday interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box, Adams said he had not yet received his first paycheck as the mayor of New York City, but reiterated his aim to make the city a Bitcoin (BTC) and crypto hub. When co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin pointed out that the price of the crypto asset has “come down” — dipping as low as $43,000 earlier today — the NYC mayor seemed to be undeterred. "Sometimes the best time to buy …

The White House is reportedly considering an Obama-era economic adviser and former Fed economist to fill the empty seats on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System in 2022. According to a Wednesday report from the Washington Post citing people familiar with the matter, U.S. President Joe Biden is still considering Duke University law professor Sarah Bloom Raskin to take one of the vacancies in the group of seven governors serving at the Federal Reserve this year, in addition to economists Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson. Cook teaches at Michigan State University and has previously worked as a …

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, has reportedly made a multi-million-dollar real estate purchase at the end of 2021. Armstrong bought a $133 million Los Angeles property from Japanese entrepreneur Hideki Tomita in December, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing anonymous people familiar with the matter. According to the WSJ, Tomita originally purchased the real estate for $85 million in 2018. The new deal allegedly marks the biggest home purchase ever completed in the L.A. area. Prior to being sold to Tomita, the Bel-Air estate was formerly owned by Ellen Bronfman …

Shortly after launching her own nonfungible token (NFT) project last month, former First Lady of the United States Melania Trump gave a shout out to Bitcoin (BTC) on Twitter. On Monday, Mrs. Trump wished Bitcoin a happy birthday. The world’s largest cryptocurrency marked its 13th anniversary on Jan. 3. It is widely reported that Bitcoin's market cap exceeds USD$1 Trillion. Today marks the 13th anniversary of the Bitcoin Genesis Block. Happy Anniversary, #SatoshiNakamoto #MelaniaNFT pic.twitter.com/aZqNJFcZmd — MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) January 3, 2022 The former First Lady said, “It is widely reported that Bitcoin’s market cap exceeds $1 trillion.” At the …

Bitcoin (BTC), the world’s most-valued cryptocurrency, has replaced gold as an inflation hedge for young investors, according to Wharton’s finance professor. Gold’s performance was “disappointing” in 2021, Wharton School’s finance professor Jeremy Siegel said in a CNBC Squawk Box last Friday. On the other hand, BTC has been increasingly emerging as an inflation hedge among younger investors, Siegel argued: “Let’s face the fact, I think Bitcoin as an inflation hedge in the minds of many of the younger investors has replaced gold. Digital coins are the new gold for the millennials. I think that the story of gold is a …

Regulators around the world have been thinking seriously about the risks associated with stablecoins since 2019 but recently, concerns have intensified, particularly in the United States. In November, the United States’ President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, or PWG, issued a key report, raising questions about possible “stablecoin runs” as well as “payment system risk.” The U.S Senate followed up in December with hearings on stablecoin risks. It raises questions: Is stablecoin regulation coming to the U.S. in 2022? If so, will it be “broad stroke” federal legislation or more piecemeal Treasury Department regulation? What impact might it have on …

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chair Gary Gensler has added a new staff member who will offer advice related to crypto policymaking and interagency work. In a Thursday announcement, the SEC said Corey Frayer would be joining Gensler’s executive staff as a senior adviser on the agency’s oversight of cryptocurrencies. Frayer has worked as a professional staff member of the Senate Banking Committee as well as a senior policy adviser for the House Financial Services Committee with Representatives Maxine Waters and Brad Miller. Frayer’s appointment to the SEC chair’s executive staff came alongside those of Philipp Havenstein, Jennifer …

ProShares, the first company in the United States to launch a Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF), is diving into metaverse as it now plans to launch a new metaverse-focused ETF. ProShares on Tuesday filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an ETF focused on metaverse, called the ProShares Metaverse Theme ETF. Subject to approval by the SEC, the proposed ETF will track the performance of the Solactive Metaverse Theme Index (SOMETAV), consisting of firms providing or using metaverse-related technologies, including data processing and metaverse devices, the ETF prospectus reads. The index includes U.S. companies that are listed …

It is that time of the year: Singular events must be abandoned in favor of end-of-year, big-picture narratives and yearly lessons learned. As many governments across the globe finally had to face the rapidly mainstreaming realm of digital finance, the year is packed with developments in crypto policy and regulation that are impossible to fit into a neat little summary. However, it is possible to try and distill several major trends that have come to the fore during the past 12 months, and that will keep shaping the relationship among societies, state power and the crypto space as we roll …

The holidays are the perfect time of the year for giving back, and the rise of cryptocurrencies has created even more opportunities for charitable initiatives. This was highlighted during Giving Tuesday 2021, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving which saw over $2.4 million raised in cryptocurrency from the nonprofit fundraising platform The Giving Block. As crypto philanthropy becomes a new subsector of the cryptocurrency economy, some in the industry believe that crypto donations will only continue to increase. Alex Wilson, co-founder of The Giving Block, told Cointelegraph that last year the organization raised about $4 million in crypto donations, noting that this …