Crypto Facilities to Provide Calculations for New Services CME Group, the derivatives marketplace, and Crypto Facilities Ltd, a cryptocurrency trading platform, report the launch of the CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate, which will provide a daily benchmark price in U.S. dollars at 4 pm London time, and CME CF Ether-Dollar Real Time Index, which will… Read More >>
Ex-CFTC Commissioner Calls for Crypto Exchange Regulation
Former CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton says that he is excited by the emergence of digital currencies – he’s even backed one – but he strongly favors regulation to avoid a crypto catastrophe. Chilton spoke earlier this week at FTF’s derivatives processing conference, DerivOps North America, held in Chicago. In a speech at the conference and… Read More >>
NY AG to Inspect Crypto Currency Exchanges
New York’s attorney general is taking cryptocurrency exchanges to task just as recent statistics about initial coin offerings (ICOs) over the past four years are indicating that 39 percent of them have failed and 191 were scams. Eric T. Schneiderman, attorney general for the Empire State, is focusing on cryptocurrency exchanges and platforms via the… Read More >>
Have You Called Your Regulator Lately?
A recurring message emerged from several of the sessions at our DerivOps conference in Chicago earlier this week. It’s simply this: financial services firms should take advantage of a new, more proactive dynamic between them and regulators. Basically, firms should feel free to tell regulators what they’re doing, especially with so many disruptive phenomena and… Read More >>
SEC & Justice Department Bear Down on Centra Tech
In the present financial era value moves around the globe via esoteric financial instruments that may exist only on the Internet. Which means that today a robbery might be entirely virtual. Even though the value stolen is entirely real. That proposition underlies the SEC’s recent complaint against the two co-founders of a so-called “financial services… Read More >>
Gemini Founders Want SRO for Crypto Markets
The founders of a cutting-edge digital asset exchange company, Gemini Trust Company, LLC, are arguing for a self-regulatory organization (SRO) that would govern transactions based upon emerging cryptocurrencies, and the effort has gotten the attention of the CFTC. Cameron Winklevoss, co-founder and president at Gemini, and his twin brother Tyler launched Gemini “a licensed digital… Read More >>
CFTC Clarifies Staff Ownership of Crypto Coins
Markets and venues for trading instruments based upon cryptocurrencies are emerging almost daily and CFTC officials have been trying to stay on top of this phenomenon via new policies and guidances, including a recent memo for CFTC staff that specifies the parameters of cryptocurrency ownership. Initial media reports implied that CFTC staffers would be set… Read More >>
SEC Charges BitFunder Founder With Fraud
The SEC has charged BitFunder, a bitcoin cryptocurrency platform, and its founder and operator Jon E. Montroll with “operating an unregistered securities exchange and defrauding users of that exchange.” The SEC also charged Montroll with “making false and misleading statements in connection with an unregistered offering of securities.” Those alleged “false and misleading statements” also… Read More >>
‘Bitstrade’ Forbidden to Do Business in the Garden State
A cryptocurrency investment entity, identified as Bitstrade, has been ordered by New Jersey government officials to stop trying to do business in the Garden State. In a cease-and-desist order issue via the Bureau of Securities, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal and the Division of Consumer Affairs are taking steps to stop Bitstrade, described… Read More >>
SEC Stops ICO Feared to Be Cryptocurrency Scam
In keeping with warnings over cryptocurrency-based investments, the SEC has acted to halt an initial coin offering (ICO) that the regulator alleges is a fraud targeting retail investors that professes to be the world’s first decentralized bank, officials say. The SEC filed a complaint in federal district court in Dallas, Texas on Jan. 25, which… Read More >>
