Regulation

The UK’s antitrust regulator is considering initiating a merger investigation into Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar collaboration with OpenAI. This announcement resulted in a response from Microsoft, declaring that it only plays a non-voting observer role on the board of the ChatGPT maker. The investigation announcement follows the ChatGPT maker’s disclosure that the U.S. tech giant would

Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao must stay in the United States until his February sentencing as he’s unlikely to return to the country if allowed to travel to the United Arab Emirates, a federal judge has ruled. On Dec. 7, Seattle District Court Judge Richard Jones ordered Zhao to stay in the U.S. until his

Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Hong Kong gaming firm to invest $100M in crypto Boyaa Interactive International, a publicly-traded Hong Kong holding company specializing in online card and board games, wants to secure the approval of its shareholders to invest $100 million in crypto. According to

Is a game even a game without bots? Pixels CEO doesn’t think so Some think that bots in games is a sign of the apocalypse, or perhaps just the makers trying to fill up an empty venue to make it look popular. But Pixels founder and CEO Luke Barwikowski says that conversely, if people aren’t

Presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy came down hard on SEC chair Gary Gensler and other “three letter agencies” during the recent Republican presidential debate, claiming that regulators had failed to keep up with crypto. During the 4th Republican presidential debate of the 2024 cycle on Dec. 7, Ramaswamy said it was “nothing short of embarrassing” that

A federal judge has accepted Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao’s guilty plea to money laundering but hasn’t decided if he can leave the United States before his February sentencing date. In a Dec. 6 filing to a Seattle District Court, Judge Richard Jones said he accepted Zhao’s guilty plea to one count of Bank Secrecy

Real bipartisan legislative efforts are rare in Washington, DC, these days, but Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin and Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Roger Marshall have managed to come together to co-sponsor a bill focused on crypto crime.  According to the senators, the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2023 aims to close

The New Jersey General Assembly may consider a bill that would decide when a digital asset or virtual currency is a security under state law.  All virtual currencies issued and sold to institutional investors would be considered securities in the U.S. state of New Jersey under the bill introduced by Democratic Assemblyman Herb Conaway, Jr.

Elon Musk’s X-linked AI modeler xAI has an agreement for the private sale of $865.3 million in unregistered equity securities, according to a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made on Dec. 5. xAI filed the SEC’s Form D to allow it to engage in the private sale of securities without

The former president of FTX US dishes the dirt on his falling out with former Jane Street colleague Sam Bankman-Fried and predicts the spot Bitcoin ETF will far outshine the record-breaking success of the Bitcoin Futures ETF. Who is this guy anyway? The ex-president of FTX US, Brett Harrison, tells Magazine that he didn’t say

Smart contract development firm Thirdweb reported a security vulnerability that potentially “impacts a variety of smart contracts across the Web3 ecosystem.” On Dec. 4, Thirdweb reported a vulnerability in a commonly used open-source library that could impact certain pre-built smart contracts, including some of its own. However, Thirdweb’s investigations concluded that the smart contract vulnerability has

The Criminal Investigation (CI) Unit of the United Internal Revenue Service (IRS) reported an increase in the number of investigations around digital asset reporting. In its annual report released on Dec. 4, the IRS investigative arm said it had initiated more than 2,676 cases in which it had identified more than $37 billion related to

Two brothers, responsible for the theft of $8.5 million from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Platypus, were allowed to walk free with no repercussions by a French court.  On Feb. 16, hackers managed to drain and move $8.5 million from Platypus through a flash loan attack, forcing the protocol to suspend trading services until a resolution

The United States needs to formally investigate using proof-of-work networks such as Bitcoin (BTC) to protect the country from cyber-inflicted warfare, according to Jason Lowery, a member of the United States Space Force. In a four-page letter to the U.S. Defense Innovation Board on Dec. 2, Lowery explained that while Bitcoin is mostly seen as a “monetary

“As part of the settlement, CZ cannot be involved in the day-to-day running of the company’s operations,” Richard Teng explains. Despite that, the incumbent CEO of Binance cuts the figure of a man reveling in the challenges ahead. Speaking to Cointelegraph just two weeks after taking over from outgoing CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao, Teng seems

Grayscale, a significant player in digital asset management, has expressed enthusiasm about the potential transformation of its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a Bitcoin ETF. This move could eliminate the current 8.09% discount of approximately $1.89 billion, aligning GBTC’s price more closely with the actual value of Bitcoin, offering significant benefits for investors. The company’s