Crypto

The UK government will examine the role of cryptocurrency donations in politics as part of a wider review of party-financing rules triggered by a bribery case involving a Reform UK politician, Bloomberg reported.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has conditionally approved five national trust bank charters for firms focused on digital assets, in a move that brings more crypto-related activity into the federal banking system but under supervisory constraints.

China’s central bank has restated its hard line on cryptocurrencies, warning that a renewed wave of speculation is testing regulators and vowing tougher action against illegal activities involving stablecoins, according to Reuters.

Families of Americans killed, injured or taken hostage in Hamas’s October, 7 2023 attack on Israel have accused Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and his cryptocurrency exchange of helping militant groups move millions of dollars, according to the Financial Times.

Fugitive former Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek has been linked to a sprawling, multibillion-dollar money laundering network that British investigators say connects street-level drug dealers in the UK to sanctioned Russian oligarchs and the Kremlin’s security services, the Financial Times reported.

Brazil’s government is weighing plans to tax the use of cryptocurrencies in international payments, targeting a fast-growing channel for moving money across borders, according to a Reuters report.

Singapore is facing renewed scrutiny over its defenses against dirty money after police seized hundreds of millions of dollars in assets linked to the Prince Group, a conglomerate labelled by U.S. and UK authorities as a “transnational criminal empire,” according to the Financial Times.

Brazil’s central bank unveiled long-awaited rules for virtual assets on Monday, extending anti–money laundering (AML) and counterterrorism financing (CTF) obligations to crypto firms and classifying fiat-pegged crypto transactions as foreign-exchange operations, Reuters reported. 

The Central Bank of Ireland has fined cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase €21.5 million for failing to properly monitor transactions, including activity potentially linked to child sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, money laundering and other crimes. 

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned eight individuals and two entities allegedly tied to laundering illicit proceeds from DPRK cybercrime and overseas IT work.