DeFi: Who, what and how to regulate in a borderless, code-governed world?

Hold onto your hats, boys and girls! It’s a new world — a financial system without intermediaries, that anyone can access 24 hours a day with only a mobile phone and a wallet! As Julien Bouteloup said to me:  “In DeFi, what we are building is fully decentralised technology, fully transparent, run by mathematics. No […]

The new episode of crypto regulation: The Empire Strikes Back

The latest news has left the decentralized finance community in a collective fetal position. Responding to the threat of increased regulatory oversight, leading decentralized exchange Uniswap recently restricted the trading of certain tokens. Earlier in July, Dan M. Berkovitz, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that DeFi derivatives platforms might contravene the […]

Korean crypto exchange Bithumb toughens up its Anti-Money Laundering measures

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb is toughening its approach to Anti-Money Laundering enforcement with a series of new measures that include trading restrictions, stronger Know Your Customer checks, and specialized blockchain intelligence solutions. The popular exchange, which has an estimated average of 1 million daily users and a daily transaction volume worth 5–7 billion ($4.4–6.2 […]

Exchanges warn that Hong Kong's crypto retail trader ban could backfire

Crypto industry actors in Hong Kong have been trying to push back against a forthcoming law that would restrict legal cryptocurrency trading to professional investors, locking out 93% of the local population from the market. In comments to the South China Morning Post published on Feb. 15, industry body Global Digital Finance warned that the proposed […]

The United States updates its crypto AML/CFT laws

Against great push back from the crypto industry and as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) reached new all-time highs several times during the last couple of months, the United States has updated its cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism laws. Related: COVID-19 pandemic spurs crypto law updates in J5 countries The Anti-Money Laundering Act […]

France moves to ban anonymous crypto accounts to prevent money laundering

French financial authorities are strengthening the country’s cryptocurrency regulations in a move to prevent illicit activities like money laundering and terrorism financing. On Dec. 9, several ministries in France jointly introduced an order aiming to prevent anonymous digital asset transactions by banning anonymous crypto accounts. The new regulatory effort is backed by French finance minister […]