Morgan Harper, a former senior advisor at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is coming out as 'crypto curious' in her race to be the Democratic nominee for one of Ohio’s U.S. Senate seats. In a Nov. 9 thread on Twitter, Harper said she was interested in the possibilities Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies could mean for policy in Ohio. According to the Democratic candidate, Bitcoin can take the place of many functions of traditional banks by passing on “the wealth of the network” to all users rather than a handful of large shareholders. “There are crypto projects out there that …

The United States Department of the Treasury has announced it will impose sanctions on the cryptocurrency exchange Chatex and its support network for allegedly facilitating transactions for ransomware actors. In an advisory update issued on Nov. 8, the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, added Chatex as well as IZIBITS OU, Chatextech SIA, and Hightrade Finance to its list of entities sanctioned by the U.S. government. The department claimed Chatex has “direct ties” with Czech Republic and Russia-based business Suex OTC, which it sanctioned in September. According to OFAC, Chatex has helped facilitate transactions for ransomware groups, …

The word “stablecoin” may have a pleasant ring to it — isn’t it nice to have something stable in the volatile cryptoverse? — but for critics, they are nothing short of a ticking time bomb. Whether that’s true or not, the push for regulating stablecoins is gaining momentum. The United States and the European Union are getting closer to formalizing their playbooks, and given the history of financial regulation emanating from Washington and Brussels, as well as the Financial Action Task Force’s guidelines on crypto over the past few years, it’s safe to say that the rest of the world …

The United States House of Representatives passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which if signed into law by President Joe Biden, would enforce new provisions in relation to crypto-tax reporting for all citizens. The infrastructure bill was first proposed by the Biden administration aimed at primarily improving the national transport network and internet coverage. However, the bill mandated stringent reporting requirements for the crypto community, mandating that digital asset transactions worth more than $10,000 are reported to the IRS. As Cointelegraph reported, the bill was first approved by the Senate on Aug. 10 with a 69-30 vote, which was …

The stablecoin market has been growing exponentially — from only $21.5 billion in mid-October of last year to $130 billion at the start of November; a six-fold increase — so it was only reasonable to expect that the United States government would have to come to grips with these digital assets that are designed to maintain a stable value relative to a fiat currency like the U.S. dollar (USD) or a commodity like gold. The Treasury Department revealed its latest thinking on the subject this week with the much-anticipated President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ (PWG’s) report on Stablecoins. That …

American grocery store chain Kroger is accepting cryptocurrency payments ahead of the holiday season. According to an official announcement on Nov. 5, the major retailer will accept Bitcoin Cash (BCH) at all of its stores — Baker's, City Market, Dillons, Fred Meyer, QFC and others — as well as for online purchases. Rodney McMullen, Kroger's chairman and CEO, said that the initiative was spurred by increased demand for cashless payments: “Throughout the pandemic, cashless payments have been thriving, and we see cryptocurrency as a natural progression of the trend to deal less with physical money.” In 2018, Kroger had broken …

Metropolises led the crypto-related hires in the United States during 2021, but jobs in the space are well dispersed around the country, LinkedIn data revealed. A new study conducted by LinkedIn for Bloomberg shows that there is not a single hub for crypto or blockchain specialists in the United States. Searching through LinkedIn members in the U.S. who listed a new job in the first nine months of the year that matched keywords crypto, blockchain, Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum or Solidity unveiled that about 53% of crypto jobs are dispersed across the States in small chunks. As crypto and blockchain stand …

Newly elected New York City Mayor Eric Adams has reiterated his pledge to make the city a crypto hub by accepting his first three paychecks entirely in Bitcoin. In a Nov. 4 response on Twitter to Francis Suarez — re-elected for another term as of Tuesday — Adams said he would be matching the Miami mayor’s pledge to accept his next paycheck in Bitcoin (BTC) in addition to the following two payments. Assuming Adams accepts a base salary of $258,750, his monthly paychecks would be roughly $21,562 each, a total of 1.05 BTC at a price of $61,268. In New …

Prime Blockchain (PrimeBlock), a new cryptocurrency mining company in the United States, is hiring its inaugural management team after starting mining Bitcoin (BTC) in September. PrimeBlock told Cointelegraph on Thursday that it appointed Goldman Sachs veteran Gaurav Budhrani as the company’s CEO. Budhrani spent over 10 years at Goldman, with his latest position featuring crypto investment banking coverage, including the $98 billion direct listing for Coinbase crypto exchange that Goldman was leading. Budhrani said on his LinkedIn that he completed over $300 billion of transactions across many crypto-related verticals, including “cryptocurrencies, semiconductors, next-gen computing technologies, and software.” The firm has …

Democrat Eric Adams, who said he planned to make New York City “the center of Bitcoins” if elected mayor, has won his race against Republican Curtis Sliwa. Following the Nov. 2 Election Day results, Adams will be replacing Bill de Blasio as the mayor of New York City, defeating Sliwa and other candidates with 72.8% of the vote. He is expected to take office on Jan. 1. It's official -- our five-borough, knock-every-door, reach-every-voter campaign was successful: We have won the race for Mayor of New York City! This is my dream come true, and I couldn’t be more proud …

U.S. Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas submitted a resolution on the Senate floor Monday that would require the acceptance of cryptocurrency payments at all gift shops, restaurants and vending machines located within the Capitol complex. The resolution, titled Adopting Cryptocurrency in Congress as an Exchange of Payment for Transactions, or ACCEPT, also prohibits the Architect of the Capitol — a presidential appointee who oversees the administration of the Capitol Complex — from entering into contracts which preclude the use of cryptocurrency as a form of payment provided that they “are cost-effective and value-centered for patrons.” Cruz said in an …

NYSE Arca, a subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Group, wants to list and operate a trust based on Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded products (ETP). In a rule change proposal with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), NYSE Arca proposed to list shares of the Bitwise Bitcoin ETP Trust. The proposal clarifies that each share of the trust will be represented by fixed “units of undivided beneficial ownership,” allowing the shares on the stock exchange to reciprocate their value in accordance with Bitcoin's market price. Moreover, the trust will be operated by two third-party associates serving as …