“The industry now has 60 days to provide feedback on the proposal.
The move is a victory for the crypto industry, which has complained the previous deadline of 15 days was far too short. FinCEN previously extended the comment period by 15 days for a proposed currency transaction report rule and 45 days for the counterparty data collection rule.
[Yellen]: I agree on the need to ensure adequate consultation with and input from stakeholders. If confirmed, I intend to ensure a full and substantive review of the proposals, which will include an assessment of how to ensure proper input from stakeholders.”
“The Human Rights Foundation exec pushed back on narratives which paint privacy and self-sovereignty in a negative light. Gladstein claimed financial privacy was just as essential to a healthy democractic state as privacy in communication tools.
Authorities will blame extremism not just on Signal and Telegram, but also on Bitcoin and anything they can’t control.
Bitcoin is neutral like cash, and can’t discriminate between good and bad […] Some extremists use these tools. They also use mobile phones, email, and the internet.
The Human Rights Foundation exec warned that turning away from financial tools like Bitcoin could potentially lead to a bigger police state in the U.S. fueled by “mass surveillance to fight extremism.”
Most Americans may not yet grasp that financial privacy is just as important as communications privacy for our democracy — that your spending habits say more about you than your words. In an open society, the ability to buy political books, have discreet medical procedures, and build communities without government surveillance is essential.”
See Also: Goldman Sachs CEO: Regulators should be ‘hyperventilating’ at Bitcoin’s success
“The firm is launching a vehicle called the Galaxy Ethereum Fund, along with two other ETH-focused funds geared toward onshore and offshore institutional investors. The onshore institutional fund requires a minimum investment of $250k, though the minimum is lowered to $100k for the offshore fund.
The fund profiles point to DeFi protocols as a potential growth area for the network.
Six applications in the Decentralized Finance space (“DeFi”) are now worth more than $1 billion and are generating up to $100s of millions in annualized revenue. Galaxy Digital believes Ethereum is an emerging substrate for programming and interacting with digital value that will become ubiquitous in the future.”
See Also: Big Guns Back $10M Investment in DeFi’s dYdX
“Bitcoin’s price dropped as much as 10% during early trading hours on Tuesday as bitcoin miners started selling a large amount of the cryptocurrency for the first time since October.
Bitcoin miners’ position index, a ratio of the number of bitcoin leaving all miners’ wallets to that number’s one-year moving average, reached an eight-year high last week and is still above 2.0. Any value above 2.0 indicates that most miners are selling.
With a need to allocate capital to more (and newer) mining rigs, taking bitcoin off of their balance sheet for cash at three or four times higher prices 30-60 days after the wet season ended in China was about the best scenario [miners] could’ve asked for.”
See Also: Union Square Ventures to Allocate 30% of New $250M Fund to Crypto-Related Investments
“Video game pioneer Atari is to take over a large Estate in the metaverse for the creation of a giant retro arcade featuring classic Atari games.
Not only that but the first Game Jam of 2021, kicking off in February, will be centered around the creation of Atari games made by the community. Alongside your creations, the arcade will feature legendary titles like Pong, Break-Out!, Asteroids, Missile Command, Centipede and more.”
See Also: Enjin enters the fashion world with augmented reality NFTs
“The U.S.-headquartered cryptocurrency exchange and custodian said it has added 20 new tokens for trading, including a number of DeFi tokens like Yearn.Finance, Uniswap and Filecoin.
Gemini has also added support for the Singapore dollar on its mobile and desktop apps, allowing FAST bank transfers for account deposits and crypto purchases.”
See Also: Japan’s top brokers compete with crypto-native exchanges for market share
“A pair of foreign government websites joined a growing cadre of online forums supporting Bitcoin’s founding document.
Publicly hosting digital copies of the white paper has become a community response to legal threats of alleged copyright violations filed by nChain Chief Scientist Craig Wright.“
“Signal is actively developing payment features relating to a Stellar-based, privacy-focused cryptocurrency called MobileCoin. Like the Facebook-backed Diem (formerly Libra) project, MobileCoin has been touted internally as a way to make it easier for people in developing nations to move money around.
However, employees at the firm fear the additions may open the app up to abusive behavior and bring negative attention to the app and encryption technologies from regulators. A crypto payments feature is seen by staff as risky because it may draw criminals onto the platform.”
The Disrupt 