Crypto-asset Financial News

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has highlighted potential risks associated with crypto-assets to the U.S. financial framework. This insight emerged from the FDIC's 2023 Risk Review, which, for the first time, included a segment on bitcoin. The report characterized the challenges posed by digital assets as both novel and intricate.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently published a white paper titled «Pathways to the Regulation of Crypto-Assets: A Global Approach,» advocating for a collaborative approach towards crypto regulation on a global scale.

"There is an opportunity for the UK to benefit from this economic and social value, both domestically and globally," says the paper, adding that the country's position in global finance will be partly determined by its approach to the nascent sector.This year, Singapore has overtaken the UK as the number two destination for investment in DLT and crypto-asset based businesses.To fight back and ensure its place at the top table, the country must have a joined-up strategy across government, regulators and the legal system that is alive to the potential benefits as well as the risks of crypto-technologies, and provides clarity for businesses and consumers interacting with them, says the paper.There must also be a continued review of UK law and regulation to ensure it provides the basis for recognising digital assets and digital transactions, as well as an improvement in the responsiveness and service levels of the UK’s regulators in their processing of applications for new businesses in the sector.Separately, Ousmène Jacques Mandeng, a visiting fellow at the LSE and blockchain advisor at Accenture, has called for the launch of a CBDC and the issuance of blockchain-based gilts to support the competitiveness of the City of London.He writes: "The bank introducing a wholesale CBDC and the Treasury announcing that a significant share of gilts will be issued on blockchain could be catalysts for the adoption of blockchain-based financial applications.

On the last day of June, the European Union reached an agreement on how to regulate the crypto-asset industry, giving the green light to Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA), the EU's main legislative proposal to oversee the industry in its 27 member countries. A day earlier, on June 29, lawmakers in the member states of the European Parliament had already passed the Transfer of Funds Regulation (ToFR), which imposes compliance standards on crypto assets to crack down on money laundering risks in the sector. 

G7 to discuss crypto-asset regulation, says French central banker

The Council of the European Union has cut Russians off from certain cryptocurrency services as part of a package of restrictive measures against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “brutal aggression against Ukraine and its people.”

A European subsidiary of United States-based crypto trading platform Uphold has received approval from the United Kingdom's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Binance Holdings Ltd., the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, has received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) to become a crypto-asset service provider. As per the statement from the company, the exchange had applied for a license as part of its larger plans to become a fully-regulated centralized cryptocurrency exchange.

Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by volume, said on December 27 that it had received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) to establish itself as a crypto-asset service provider in the country. Binance had applied for a license from the CBB as part of its plans to become a fully-regulated centralised cryptocurrency exchange.

Tokyo’s biggest finserv firm, SBI Group, will now allow general Japanese investors to purchase cryptocurrencies via its newly launched ‘crypto asset fund’. The fund is composed of seven cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), XRP, Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Chainlink (LINK) and Polkadot (DOT). 

Three major US agencies–Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency– released a joint statement recently. It listed crypto activities that will be considered permissible for the banking organizations.