MARK COLLINS & DEMETRIOS TSEAS Regulatory News: U.S. Justice Dept charges three individuals for $1.89B cryptocurrency fraud scheme: On Jan 29, the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against two individuals and the guilty plea of a third individual for orchestrating a $1.89 billion cryptocurrency scheme, for allegedly co-founding HyperFund, also known as HyperTech, HyperCapital, HyperVerse, and HyperNation. … The post Weekly Update #38 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

Regulatory and Legislative Analysis – GLOBAL Interpol releases analysis of the Metaverse’s key challenges threats and harms On Jan 18, Interpol released a new white paper titled: “Metaverse, a law enforcement perspective: Use cases, crime, forensics, investigation and governance.” This document provides an in-depth analysis of the Metaverse from a law enforcement perspective. Interpol notes… The post Regulatory and Legislative Analysis – January 2024 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

MARK COLLINS & DEMETRIOS TSEAS Regulatory: BIS Innovation Hub announces first six projects for 2024 work program: On Jan 23, the BIS Innovation Hub announced the first batch of six new projects in its 2024 Innovation Hub work program. Three of these projects involve: experimentation in next generation quantum resistance communication channels; CBDCs privacy considerations; and tokenization.… The post Weekly Update #37 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

MARK COLLINS & DEMETRIOS TSEAS Regulatory: UNODC issues report, finds casinos, []junkets and cryptocurrency to have emerged as a critical ML piece in the East and Southeast Asia: On Jan 15, The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) issued a report titled: ‘Casinos, Money Laundering, Underground Banking, and Transnational Organized Crime in East… The post Weekly Update #36 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

MARK COLLINS & DEMETRIOS TSEAS Regulatory: CFTC Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology Subcommittee releases DeFi report: On Jan 8, the Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology Subcommittee of the CFTC’s Technology Advisory Committee, released a report on Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The report highlights that (DeFi) presents promising opportunities and complex, significant risks to the U.S. financial… The post Weekly Update #35 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

Top Story: The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) approved all 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs yesterday January 10th, 2024! As of today, January 11th, 2024 the ETFs are trading with surpassing $1.2B in trading volume just in the first 30 min. Technology Recap: Bitcoin: Antoine Poinsot posted to Delving Bitcoin further details around v3 transaction relay policy… The post Crypto && Coffee 148 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

Technology Recap: Bitcoin: Core developers started a working group around the cluster mempool proposal. This proposal aims to make it easier to operate on the mempool while respecting the required ordering of transactions. In this design, clusters of one or more related transactions can be split into fee-rate sorted chunks. Any chunk can thus be included in a… The post Crypto && Coffee 147 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

Regulatory and Legislative Analysis – GLOBAL Egmont Group releases report summary highlights for Terrorist Finance Risks of Virtual Assets The Egmont Group (EG) released its Public Summary Report on Abuse of Virtual Assets (VAs) for Terrorist Financing Purposes. The report places emphasis on pinpointing vulnerabilities associated with virtual assets (VAs), showcasing EG Financial Intelligence Units’… The post Regulatory and Legislative Analysis – December 2023 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

MARK COLLINS & DEMETRIOS TSEAS Regulatory: France’s Société Générale issues a first digital green bond on Ethereum: On Dec 4, Société Générale(SG) announced it has issued its first digital green bond as a Security Token directly registered by SG-FORGE, a regulated subsidiary of the SG group that provides Digital Assets structuring, issuing, exchange and custody… The post Weekly Update #33 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more

Regulatory and Legislative Analysis – GLOBAL FATF to provide countries with enhanced tools to more effectively freeze, seize and confiscate criminal property During its fourth Plenary in Paris (Oct 25-27) the Plenary agreed on major amendments to the FATF Recommendations that will provide countries with enhanced tools to more effectively freeze, seize, and confiscate criminal… The post Regulatory and Legislative Update – November 2023 appeared first on Ciphertrace ..read more