On February 15, Representative Warren Davidson (R-OH) announced he will be introducing the “Keep Your Coins Act,” which is intended “[t]o prohibit Federal agencies from restricting the use of convertible virtual currency by a person to purchase goods or services for the person’s own use, and for other purposes.” That same day, Congressman
TransUnion recently announced it will make off-chain credit data available on public blockchain networks through Spring Labs’ ky0x Digital Passport, which enables Web3/Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications or smart contracts to access off-chain identity, compliance, credit, and other custom data with lines of code. “The move enables better-informed, privacy-preserving DeFi and Web3 applications (internet applications based
On February 16, the Financial Stability Board issued an updated “Assessment of Risks to Financial Stability from Crypto-assets,” concluding that crypto-asset markets are fast evolving and could reach a point where they represent a threat to global financial stability due to their scale, structural vulnerabilities, and increasing interconnectedness with the traditional financial system.
Several recent events highlight the expanding effort by the federal government to address the growing digital currency marketplace and the government’s role in it.
According to recent reporting, the Biden administration is preparing an executive order that will outline a comprehensive strategy for cryptocurrencies and ask federal agencies to assess the potential risks and
On January 25, the Florida Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) issued an investor advisory “to raise awareness about decentralized finance (DeFi), a relatively new blockchain-based group of financial services gaining popularity[.]” The OFR defines DeFi as “financial services provided by an algorithm on a blockchain, without a traditional financial services company.” The advisory describes DeFi,
On January 25, the House Committee on Financial Services announced its hearing schedule for the month of February, which includes a full committee hearing on February 8 at 10:00 a.m. ET on “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: The President’s Working Group on Financial Markets’ Report on Stablecoins.”
As previously discussed by our colleagues,
Will 2022 be the year of comprehensive digital asset legislation in the U.S.?
In 2021, Congress waded into the digital asset policy waters through its inclusion of expanded cryptocurrency and digital asset rules as part of the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (HR 3584), which was signed into law by President Joe Biden
On January 18, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) conditionally approved an application by Social Finance Inc. (SoFi) to acquire Golden Pacific Bank, National Association, so long as the new bank does “not engage in any crypto-asset activities or services.”
SoFi’s application allows for the creation of SoFi Bank, National Association (SoFi
In a January 10 report titled, “Virtual Currencies: Additional Information Could Improve Federal Agency Efforts to Counter Human and Drug Trafficking,” the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified virtual currency kiosks as one reason driving an increase in the use of crypto payments to facilitate illegal activities, such as human and drug trafficking. According to the
On January 10, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued an alert about a new cryptocurrency payment scam involving impersonators convincing consumers to send money obtained from a cryptocurrency automated teller machine (ATM) via a quick response (QR) code.
According to the FTC, this is a new twist on scammers pretending to be someone a person