Author: Coindesk

This all follows the arrest of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm, who faces allegations of money laundering and sanctions violations, as the Department of Justice accuses Storm and his co-developer Roman Semenov of facilitating more than $1 billion in money laundering via their mixing protocol, including, allegedly, for North Korea’s Lazarus Group. Read the full article here

The slowdown in bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflows is a short-term pause before ETFs become more integrated with private bank platforms, wealth advisors and more brokerage platforms, and not the beginning of a worrying trend, broker Bernstein said in a research report on Monday. Read the full article here

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Earlier this month, Australia-based Monochrome Asset Management applied for a spot bitcoin ETF with the global listing exchange, Cboe Australia, CoinDesk reported. Cboe Australia is a smaller rival of ASX. At the time of the announcement, Monochrome said it selected Cboe Australia because of its expertise across Asia and broader investor access, among other aspects. Read the full article here

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have shepherded the country’s Web3 strategy along with a host of regulations and plans for the crypto sector. A major corruption scandal, however, bodes ill for Kishida and the party’s future – leaving the country’s crypto progress on uncertain footing. Read the full article here

The DOJ charged Storm, alongside fellow developer Roman Semenov, with conspiring to commit money laundering, conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitter and conspiring to violate sanctions law by creating and operating Tornado Cash, a crypto mixing service designed to anonymize transactions. North Korea’s Lazarus Group and other criminal entities have laundered funds through Tornado Cash, U.S. authorities have alleged. Read the full article here

“The Howey test is a transaction-by-transaction analysis,” Deaton argued. “There are thousands of digital assets and thousands, sometimes millions, of transactions occurring on various blockchains. Because of this inconvenient reality, the SEC adopted an unconstitutional shortcut by effectively saying all transactions of the tokens violate securities laws.” Read the full article here

The yen’s devaluation didn’t impact crypto markets yet, but this could change if the BOJ steps in to prop up the currency, Noelle Acheson, analyst and author of the Crypto Is Macro Now reports, said in an email interview. A possible intervention would mean the BOJ selling U.S. dollar assets (U.S. Treasuries) to buy yen, and a weaker greenback could in theory help crypto prices, she added. Read the full article here

A federal judge ruled last month that the Kansas City Fed had the discretion to reject Custodia’s bid for a master account. Custodia, according to the court, had not provided sufficient evidence to back up accusations that the Fed’s Board of Governors was illegally leaning on the Kansas City branch to reject the bank’s bid for the master account which, if granted, would let Custodia directly access the Fed and not need intermediary banks. Read the full article here

CoinDesk 20 tracks top digital assets and is investible on multiple platforms. The broader CMI comprises approximately 180 tokens and seven crypto sectors: currency, smart contract platforms, DeFi, culture & entertainment, computing, and digitization. Read the full article here