This is the second in a three-part series based on Gary Gensler's extensive prior public statements on crypto. Here are parts 1 and 3. Gary Gensler will likely become chairman for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, in the coming days. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, Gensler knows his way around crypto and blockchain, evident in his leadership of a class on the subject at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. While teaching the Fall 2018 semester, Gensler gave a wealth of insight into crypto regulation. In 2018, U.S. regulators were very much struggling …

With just three months until the deadline for United States citizens to declare their crypto gains and losses to the Internal Revenue Service, Coinbase is partnering with portfolio tracking and tax calculating platform CoinTracker to make the process simpler. According to CoinTracker, it's an easy way for Coinbase users to report their crypto transactions and sales. Targeted at U.S. users, CoinTracker will calculate and fill out the specific forms — for example, Form 8949 and Schedule D — to declare capital gains, losses and assets on income tax returns. It can be used by individuals and accountants or as part …

In response to a deluge of comments, the United States Treasury Department's Anti-Money Laundering office is slowing its roll on a rushed proposal to monitor a whole new range of cryptocurrency transactions. On Thursday, the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, announced that it was extending the window on comments in response to a rule originally announced two days before Christmas and less than a month before a new administration takes over. The rule as originally proposed sought to add new thresholds for registered money services business — i.e., crypto exchanges — transacting with self-hosted wallets, which are only …

Custody pioneer Anchorage is the first crypto firm to see a charter from the U.S. national bank regulator. Per a Wednesday announcement from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Anchorage will have conditional authorization to operate as a trust institution nationally. The charter is the first of its kind, part of an idea of a "fintech charter" stretching back to the Obama years, but which has been accelerated under the leadership of Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks, formerly of Coinbase's legal team. Per the announcement, Anchorage's continued charter will hinge upon unique requirements: "As an enforceable condition of approval, …

The departing leader of the United States Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is convinced that the future of finance is blockchain-native, per a conversation with crypto analytics firm Elliptic on Wednesday. Described by Elliptic CEO Simone Maini as "a fairy godfather to the crypto industry," Brian Brooks has been a leading light in U.S. federal policy toward crypto since taking over for Comptroller Joseph Otting in May 2020. Today, he outlined views that follow an opinion piece he wrote for the Financial Times yesterday. Namely, Brooks took the opportunity to promote his vision of an OCC that checks …

The United States Department of Justice saw a victory in a major fintech acquisition case that could set the stage for a host of antitrust enforcements. On Tuesday, the DoJ announced that Visa and Plaid had called it quits on their planned merger. Originally announced almost exactly a year ago, Visa was planning to pay $5.3 billion for the upstart tech firm. Plaid's ubiquitous software is designed to connect disparate systems of financial data securely. In its November 2020 complaint, the DoJ alleged that Visa was using the acquisition to snuff out competition. Today, Makan Delrahim, of the DoJ's antitrust …

President-elect Biden has finally decided on his nominee to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. At least according to Reuters' anonymous sourcing in a Tuesday report, Gary Gensler will be Biden's nominee as SEC Chair. During the Obama administration, Gensler was the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in which capacity he was in charge of enforcing the many new provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act that followed the 2008 financial crisis. Gensler has spent most of the Trump years at MIT, teaching courses on digital assets and blockchain. If nominated, there is little doubt that a now-Democrat-controlled Senate would …

In an opinion piece published in the Financial Times on Tuesday, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks put forward the need to reconfigure banking regulations for an age of algorithms. Brooks, who currently leads the Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, compared existing banking regulations to traffic laws. He further used the analogy of self-driving cars for new steps in decentralized finance. "Just as the original rules of the road protected us from other drivers, so our current bank regulations exist mainly to prevent human failings," wrote Brooks. The overall tone of Brook's letter is confident that …

As digital assets made strides toward mainstream status in 2020, the guardians of the incumbent financial system have been working hard to minimize disruption caused by their integration. In the U.S., regulatory and law enforcement interventions throughout the year have left some projects out of business, empowered traditional players to take a closer look at crypto, and sent some unequivocal messages to cryptocurrency service providers globally. Naturally, the steady legitimization and expansion of the crypto space led regulators to get more involved than ever before. Below are the biggest cases of U.S. watchdog and law enforcement agencies’ involvement that have …

Eight states and the District of Columbia are suing the national bank regulator over a rule change that just came into effect. Per a Jan. 5 filing, New York's attorney general is leading the charge against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and current Acting Comptroller Brian Brooks. Back in October, the OCC laid out its "True Lender" rule, which took effect at the end of December. The rule dictates that a loan that includes a national bank as a lender can therefore rely on the OCC's national guidance rather than that of individual states. The controversy here …

Monday evening, the Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency told national banks that they are allowed to run independent nodes for distributed ledger networks. Referring to of independent node verification networks, the OCC's interpretive letter says that banks "may use new technologies, including INVNs and related stablecoins, to perform bank-permissible functions, such as payment activities." Coming amid a great deal of uncertainty as to the future of stablecoins, the OCC's announcement is big news. The office, nonetheless, cautions that there are cyber risks inherent to using such technology: "Banks must also be aware of potential risks when conducting …

Despite many objections to the truncated timeframe, public comments are due tonight in response to the U.S. Treasury's proposal to require businesses like crypto exchanges to know the identities behind wallets with which they transact. As of Sunday night, the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, had recorded 5,633 responses to its proposed rule. That number is despite the fact that FinCEN gave only 15 days, rather than the usual 60 for responses. The office dropped its announcement on Dec. 18, a Friday evening a week before Christmas Day in the states. Meanwhile, today, the due date, is the …