Tag: cryptocurrency

US Regulators Allow Banks Custody Over Bitcoin And Crypto

The Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC warn banks that safekeeping bitcoin and other crypto-assets demands strong cybersecurity, operational expertise, and full legal compliance.

Federal banking regulators issued a joint statement today emphasizing that banks involved in bitcoin and crypto-assets-related custody and other activities by following existing laws and maintaining strong risk controls. The statement, issued by the Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC, clarifies that it does not introduce new rules but reminds banks of their obligations when handling bitcoin and other crypto on behalf of customers.

“Banking organizations may provide safekeeping for crypto-assets in a fiduciary or a nonfiduciary capacity,” the document stated. “Banking organizations that provide crypto-asset safekeeping in a fiduciary capacity must comply with 12 CFR 9 or 150, as applicable, state laws and regulations, and any other applicable legal provisions, such as the instrument that created the fiduciary relationship.”

The agencies emphasize that safekeeping bitcoin and other crypto-assets, mainly through control of customers’ cryptographic keys, requires strong cybersecurity, operational expertise, and full legal compliance. Banks offering these services must be prepared to protect against risks such as key loss, cyberattacks, and unauthorized asset transfers.

They also note that bitcoin and other crypto safekeeping may demand specialized staff, secure infrastructure, and constant monitoring of evolving technologies. Regulatory requirements like anti-money laundering (AML), countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), and OFAC sanctions still apply. 

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Trump Cuts Deal To End Republican Revolt On Crypto Bills

US President Donald Trump says he has convinced most of the Republican lawmakers who pulled support from three crypto bills to vote in favor of them when the House meets again on Wednesday.

Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday that he met with 11 of the 12 representatives in the Oval Office and convinced them to vote in favor of the legislation.

“I am in the Oval Office with 11 of the 12 Congressmen/women necessary to pass the GENIUS Act and, after a short discussion, they have all agreed to vote tomorrow morning in favor of the Rule,” Trump said.

A re-vote on the three crypto bills was canned on Tuesday, as 13 Republican lawmakers pulled support, wanting to add a ban on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

Some Republicans wanted the stablecoin-regulating GENIUS Act amended or bundled in with two other crypto bills up for a vote this week — the CBDC-banning Anti-CBDC Surveillance Act and a sweeping crypto market structure bill dubbed the CLARITY Act.

The move to pass the bills is the Republican-led effort dubbed “Crypto Week” to have crypto laws in action before Congress goes on a month-long break in August. Democrats have meanwhile declared an “anti-crypto corruption week” to oppose the bills.

“I’m thankful for President Trump getting involved tonight to ensure that we can pass the GENIUS Act tomorrow, and agreeing again to help us advance additional crypto legislation in the coming days,” House Speaker Mike Johnson posted on X.

CBDC concerns stall legislation

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise joined 12 other Republican lawmakers in voting no on considering the bills on Tuesday. The other dissenters were Andrew Clyde, Tim Burchett, Andy Biggs, Eli Crane, Michael Cloud, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Harris, Anna Paulina Luna, Scott Perry, Victoria Spartz, Chip Roy and Keith Self.

Another vote to move the bills forward was expected, but the House adjourned before any further action was taken.

Representatives Biggs, Burchett, Green, Luna and Spartz took to X after the vote and said they were not against the crypto bills but didn’t want to pass the GENIUS Act unless it had a specific ban on a CBDC.

“I just voted NO on the Rule for the GENIUS Act because it does not include a ban on central bank digital currency and because Speaker Johnson did not allow us to submit amendments to the GENIUS Act,” Green said.

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Hong Kong Sets Out Plan to Regulate Crypto, Encourage Tokenization

In its second policy statement on the subject, the government said it intends to take further steps to regulate digital asset service providers, exchanges and stablecoins.

What to know:

  • Hong Kong’s government released its second major policy statement on digital assets.
  • It said it wants to establish a regulatory framework focusing on risk management and investor protection as it strives to become a global hub for the industry.
  • The Securities and Futures Commission will oversee the regulation of custodians, digital asset service providers, exchanges and stablecoins, with public consultations on licensing regimes starting soon.

Hong Kong’s government released its second major policy statement on digital assets, underlining its pledge to set the region up as a global hub for the industry and saying it plans to establish a regulatory regime that puts risk management and investor protection center stage.

The framework will be overseen by the Securities and Futures Commission and apply to custodians, digital asset service providers, exchanges and stablecoins, the government said Thursday. Public consultations on the licensing regimes will start shortly, it said.

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Data Center Construction Boom Faces Local Resistance In 28 States

The need for data centers to drive 21st century cloud computing and win the AI race with China is a matter of such national urgency that Energy Secretary Chris Wright describes it as America’s “next Manhattan Project.”

But assessing how many data centers—a ubiquitous yet vague term for “server farms,” supercomputer networks, bitcoin and crypto “mines”—exist right now in the United States is, in itself, a foray into quixotic cloudy computing.

There were a “reported” 5,426 data centers in the United States in March, according to Statista.

Meanwhile, Denmark-based Data Center Map ApS counts 3,761 listed data centers in the United States. Data Centers.com, a global technology marketplace headquartered in Colorado, maintains there are 2,483 of the centers now operating nationwide.

These and other estimates confirm the consensus that the United States has five to 10 times the number of functioning data centers as any other country in the world, including China.  In fact, approximately half the planet’s data centers are in the United States, according to a ranking by Visual Capitalist.

And yet, as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said during the April 30 Hill & Valley Forum, an annual gathering of congressional lawmakers and Silicon Valley venture capitalists, the need to build out the nation’s electric grid to power more data centers is “one of two existential threats we face as a country;” the other beingIran’s development of a nuclear weapon. If that need is not met, the nation will “lose the AI race with China.”

The projected energy demand for data centers will triple by 2028, the Department of Energy estimated last year. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation forecast the same number a year earlier.

These “load growth” assessments, coming after years of relative stagnation in electricity usage, were issued after the late-2022 advent of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. That shockwave rattled utilities, regional transmission operators, and state public utility commissions, sending them scrambling to scale-up electrical grids to accommodate this projected growth in data centers.

The result was a data center building spree. CBRE, a Texas-based commercial real estate services company, in late 2024 projected that more than 4,750 data center projects would break ground in the United States in 2025, “nearly as many … as already exist” nationwide.

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California Passes Bill To Accept Crypto For State Payments

California has taken a step closer toward embracing crypto after a bill allowing state departments to accept digital currencies sailed through the state’s lower house with a unanimous vote and is now headed for the Senate.

Assembly Bill 1180 (AB 1180), which passed the California State Assembly on June 2 with a 68-0 vote on its third reading, would require the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) to develop rules permitting state fees and transactions under the Digital Financial Assets Law (DFAL) to be payable in crypto.

The DFPI is California’s regulatory agency tasked with overseeing financial services and protecting consumers while promoting responsible innovation. Individuals and entities conducting crypto business activities in the state must obtain a license from the DFPI.

If AB 1180 clears the Senate and is signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, the bill would become effective on July 1, 2026.

According to the bill’s sponsor, Democratic Assemblymember Avelino Valencia, a pilot program would run until Jan. 1, 2031, when it would become fully operational.

If AB 1180 is passed, California could join the likes of Florida, Colorado and Louisiana that have accepted crypto payments for certain obligations in recent years.

California’s bill would require the DFPI to submit a report by Jan. 1, 2028, detailing all crypto transactions processed, in addition to any technical and regulatory challenges encountered.

Crypto transactions under DFAL are defined as any digital representation of value that is used as a medium of exchange, but is not legal tender.

AB 1180 saw four amendments before being passed by the California Assembly on June 2.

The most notable exclusion concerned a section that sought to define terms related to ride-sharing companies and personal vehicles used for transportation services.

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The Rise And Fall Of Two Crypto Traders Who Tortured A Bitcoin Millionaire For His Password

A shocking crypto kidnapping case involving two self-styled traders has rocked New York. On May 23, Italian crypto millionaire Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan escaped from a luxury townhouse in New York’s upscale SoHo neighbourhood, running barefoot onto a city street and flagging down a traffic officer, according to The New York Post. Carturan told police he had been kidnapped and held captive for nearly three weeks by John Woeltz and William Duplessie.

Prosecutors alleged that during his captivity, Carturan was tortured with a chainsaw and tased while standing in water, and at one point was hung off a roof ledge in a bid to force him to reveal the password to his Bitcoin wallet, reportedly worth $30 million.

According to ABC News, prosecutors said Woeltz and Duplessie lured Carturan to New York by threatening to have his family killed. Once he arrived, they allegedly stripped him of his passport and electronics, bound his wrists, beat him, shocked his feet, struck him in the head with a gun, cut his leg with a saw, urinated on him, and forcibly made him smoke crack cocaine.

Prosecutors said Carturan eventually escaped after convincing his captors to retrieve his laptop so he could access his Bitcoin wallet. When Woeltz left to get the laptop, Carturan ran out and sought help.

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President Trump’s Crypto Czar, David Sacks, Says Elizabeth Warren Behind Biden Regime Anti-Crypto Agenda… ‘Controlled Autopen’

In a fiery Fox Business interview on Tuesday, President Trump’s newly appointed Crypto and AI Czar, David Sacks, pulled no punches — directly accusing radical leftist Senator Elizabeth Warren of running the Biden White House’s infamous autopen and using it as a weapon to “terrorize” the crypto community.

Sacks, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur turned pro-Trump policymaker, didn’t mince words during the interview.

He accused “Pocahontas” Warren of waging a personal war against digital finance, calling her actions a “pathological hatred” of crypto.

Sacks: “This is the financial system of the future, Jessie, and we have to encourage it. What the Biden administration was doing—and let’s face it, it wasn’t Biden—Elizabeth Warren controlled the autopen during that administration.

She, for some reason, has this pathological hatred of the crypto community. She wants to drive this community offshore; she doesn’t want it happening in the United States. That’s the wrong policy for the United States.

We want all the innovation happening here. This is a financial system of the future. It’s cheaper, it’s more efficient—we want it happening here, Jessie. And I think people are thrilled that President Trump is making that possible.”

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Crypto investor allegedly tortured captive Italian businessman with a chainsaw for weeks in luxe NYC pad in sadistic scheme to gain password: sources

A cryptocurrency investor from Kentucky is suspected of torturing an Italian businessman with a chainsaw in a sadistic, weeks-long extortion attempt to gain the password for his accounts at a ritzy Manhattan apartment – before the captive made a daring escape, police sources said.

John Woeltz, 37, was arrested after the bloodied and bruised businessman – a 28 year-old man – broke out of the SoHo house of horrors Friday morning, ran to a police officer and said he’d been held prisoner for more than two weeks, the sources said.

Cops rushed to the luxurious Prince Street pad – which Woeltz was allegedly renting for roughly $30,000 to $40,000 a month – and discovered multiple Polaroid photos showing the businessman being tied up with electrical wire and tortured, including one of him bound to a chair with a gun pointed at his head, according to the sources.

Since being taken captive, the businessman had been bound with an electric cord, Tased while his feet were put in water, pistol-whipped, forced to take cocaine and threatened to have his limbs cut off with an electric chainsaw, the sources said.

The nightmare erupted from a dispute over cryptocurrency, in which the suspect allegedly tried to extort millions of dollars from the man by unleashing a litany of horrific tortures, according to sources.

The man was rushed to Bellevue Hospital for treatment, while cops arrested Woeltz, who was expected to face an assault charge, the sources said.

Woeltz was charged Friday night with two counts of second-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping, first-degree, first degree unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon.

A second person — 24-year-old Beatrice Folchi of Manhattan — was also arrested and charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree unlawful imprisonment.

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Coinbase Customers’ Personal Data Stolen in Hack, Stock Drops

The cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase was recently targeted in a hacking incident that led to the personal data of thousands of customers being stolen, the company said in a May 15 statement.

According to a March 31 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Coinbase had 9.7 million monthly transaction users (MTU) by the end of that month.

Since the company claims that less than 1 percent of MTUs have been impacted by the hack, the number of affected individuals could be around 97,000.

Hackers got access to names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, last four digits of Social Security numbers, masked bank account numbers and identifiers, government ID images such as driver’s licenses and passports, and account data such as balance snapshots and transaction history.

Hackers did not get access to login credentials or 2FA codes, private keys, customer funds and the ability to move these funds, Coinbase Prime accounts, Coinbase or Coinbase customer hot or cold wallets.

Following the revelation, Coinbase shares crashed by 7.2 percent on Thursday.

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Crypto CEO’s daughter, toddler horrifically assaulted in kidnap attempt on Paris streets — just steps away from Kim Kardashian

The daughter of a cryptocurrency CEO  and her 2-year-old child were attacked by a group of knife-wielding kidnappers in the center of Paris on Tuesday, harrowing video shows.

The scene unfolded on the same morning Kim Kardashian arrived at a Paris court to testify in a jewelry heist trial wearing a $3 million diamond necklace — less than two miles away.

Footage of the attack shows the moment the masked men violently try to force the woman, 34, into their van with her 2-year-old daughter as she screams for help.

The men try to force the woman into a Chronopost delivery van before they’re scared off by a heroic passerby who chases them with a fire extinguisher, hurling it at them as the suspects run away.

The victims were also saved by the child’s father, 30, who shielded them with his body and suffered multiple blows and a possible stab wound from the would-be kidnappers, Le Parisien reported.

The victims in Tuesday’s attack were identified only as the family of a CEO of a cryptocurrency purchasing platform, according to local media. 

The suspects remain on the run after their vehicle was found in the same borough near Rue Pache in the 11th arrondissement

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