Just between July 2020 and June 2021, ransomware activity soared by a whopping 1,070%, according to a recent Fortinet report, with other researchers confirming the proliferation of this mode of extortion. Mimicking the prevalent business model of the legitimate tech world, ransomware-as-a-service portals popped up in the darker corners of the web, institutionalizing the shadow industry and slashing the skill ceiling for wannabe-criminals. The trend should be ringing a warning bell through the crypto ecosystem, particularly since ransomware attackers do have a knack for payments in crypto. That said, the industry that was once a Wild Wild West is now …

Ripple’s court battle with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has recently seen new developments that, according to some observers, could foreshadow an impending resolution of this massively consequential case. Feb. 17 marks the deadline for Ripple to unseal a series of 2012 documents whose contents will likely sway the opinions of both the court and the public toward either one side or another. In another plot twist, the court’s decision to treat some of the SEC’s documents as open to discovery could set a groundbreaking precedent for similar cases involving U.S. executive agencies. Here is where things stand …

It’s the Netflix script that wrote itself. A story so outlandish, it’s stunned the crypto community; an industry accustomed to apparent suicides in Spanish jail cells and nonfungible token auctions for dead rappers. The plot involves the United States Department of Justice (DoJ), a crypto exchange with a checkered history, a rapper-cum-Forbes magazine writer, a voucher to buy a new PlayStation, an occasional magician and $4 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC). The alleged Bitfinex hack money launderers have kept the internet enraptured since the larger-than-life story emerged last week. It’s no wonder that Netflix has actually announced that they will …

The Super Bowl advertisements by crypto companies including Coinbase, FTX, and several others ruled the social media and news headlines for their out-of-the-box approach. However, The United States Senate Banking Committee chief Sherrod Brown was not impressed and blasted the ad-makers for not including appropriate warnings and risks involved. Brown, during the Tuesday Senate hearing on stablecoins, brought in the topic of popular crypto advertisements that aired during the Super Bowl. He said most of these ads failed to tell people about the downsides of investing in cryptocurrencies. The companies failed to mention the wild price swings and prevalent scams …

Ohio’s eighth district congressman Warren Davidson has introduced the “Keep Your Coins” bill in the House of Representatives to protect individuals’ self-custodied crypto wallets from U.S. government agency control. The introduction on Feb. 15 comes just a day after the Canadian government invoked the Emergencies Act, giving it the power to freeze bank accounts and monitor large transactions (including crypto) without a court order. The move was in direct response to fundraising efforts by the COVID-19 policy-focused Freedom Convoy protesters. The name of the bill 'Keep Your Coins' is a play on KYC and refers to protections for crypto users …

Several storylines that had been long in the making dominated last week’s news cycle in the cryptocurrency policy and enforcement department. The Russian government has made another huge step on the path toward creating a tailored regulatory framework for digital assets, unveiling its consolidated view that crypto is to be treated as currency rather than swept under the rug of a blanket ban. While this movement in the direction of crypto’s formal legitimization is a welcomed development, a host of questions persists related to both the exact shape of the new regime and its enforcement. The biggest enforcement story of …

On Feb. 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, announced actions against crypto lending company BlockFi over its failure to register high-yield interest accounts that the agency deems to be securities. New Jersey-based BlockFi will pay $50 million in settlement to the SEC and another $50 million to 32 U.S. states that brought similar charges. This marks some of the heaviest penalties ever imposed by a U.S. federal regulator on a cryptocurrency service provider. The firm also agreed to stop onboarding new customers to the unregistered service, BlockFi Interest Accounts, and attempt to bring it into compliance with the …

On Feb. 6, the United States Department of the Treasury released a report under the headline “Study of the facilitation of money laundering and terror finance through the trade in works of art.” In fact, only a tiny fraction of the 40-page document is dedicated to the “Emerging Digital Art Market,” by which the department understands the market for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. Still, even a brief mention of the emerging NFT space in this context can have major implications for the tone of the nascent regulatory debate with regard to the asset class. What the report said The overall …

The world recently got a sneak peek at what a digital dollar, or at least one component of a hypothetical United States central bank digital currency (CBDC), might look like, courtesy of Project Hamilton, a collaborative effort of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the MIT Digital Currency Initiative. The results of the project’s first phase were originally expected last summer but were released on Feb. 3. The project, announced in 2020, is named in honor of Alexander Hamilton, the first U.S. Treasury secretary, and Margaret Hamilton, an MIT staffer who contributed to NASA’s Apollo program. Researchers developed two …

The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, or Boston Fed, has selected economist Susan M. Collins, University of Michigan provost, to serve as its new president and chief executive officer. The seat has become vacant in September 2021, when the then-president Eric Rosengren expedited his retirement amid a controversy around his securities trading while in office. Collins, who is Jamaican-American, will become the first Black woman in the Fed’s history to lead a Federal Reserve Bank. She will assume office on July 1. The Boston Fed is one of 12 regional branches of the Federal Reserve. Along with the Fed’s Board …

Every global event or major political crisis these days can trigger a digital asset-related conversation. As China welcomes the world’s top athletes to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, showing off ultra-high-tech facilities and sports infrastructure, some United States politicians have raised concerns over the Games’ potential to act as a booster to the digital yuan’s adoption. In neighboring Myanmar, the military government that had overthrown the nation’s elected leadership a year ago is now looking into launching its own digital currency, not to project economic influence but to improve the domestic payments system and the struggling economy more broadly. Below …

Martin J. Gruenberg, the acting chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, named “crypto-assets” among the agency’s key priorities in 2022, alongside addressing financial risks associated with climate change and promoting amendments to major federal statutes relevant to FDIC’s jurisdiction. A Feb. 7 statement outlines five key areas that the agency deems most important for its mission of maintaining public confidence in the U.S. financial system. Number four on the list is evaluating “crypto-asset risks.” Acknowledging the rapid pace with which digital asset-based products are becoming part of the financial landscape, the statement emphasizes systemic risks that this …