Dapper Labs is laying off 20% of its full-time staff in a renewed bid to restructure the organization, according to a letter to staff sent Thursday by founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou. “We are restructuring the Dapper Labs organization to improve our focus and efficiency, strengthening our position in the market and better serving our communities,” Gharegozlou wrote, adding that…
U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer has introduced the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) Anti-Surveillance State Act “to halt efforts of unelected bureaucrats” from “stripping Americans of their right to financial privacy.” The bill also prohibits the Federal Reserve “from issuing a CBDC directly to anyone.” CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act Introduced U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN) announced Tuesday that he has introduced…
Our weekly roundup of news from East Asia curates the industry’s most important developments. Hong Kong moves bullish On Feb. 20, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) of Hong Kong launched a consultation on its proposed regulatory requirements for digital asset trading platforms. The SFC requires the licensing of all cryptocurrency exchanges operating in Hong Kong, or soliciting services from…
The United States Federal Reserve has denied a request from cryptocurrency bank Custodia Bank to reconsider its membership application to the Federal Reserve System. The Fed announced its denial on Feb. 23 saying the Federal Reserve Board previously decided that Custodia’s application “was inconsistent with the required factors under the law.” @federalreserve announces it has denied the request by Custodia…
Four Russians have been charged in the U.S. with operating a crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of millions of dollars. If convicted, they would face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for their roles in the purportedly decentralized finance (defi) platform Forsage. Forsage Founders Charged With Running Cryptocurrency Pyramid A federal grand jury in the…
Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual reality division may be losing money—but one country is finding the tech useful: Colombia last week became one of the first countries in the world to host a court hearing in Meta’s metaverse. Lawmakers in the South American nation held a two-hour hearing using Horizon Workrooms, a Meta platform that allows teams to get together via a…
The executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has assessed a paper on crypto asset policy published by the fund and expressed its agreement with its proposed policy framework. The paper, titled “Elements of Effective Policies for Crypto Assets,” developed framework of nine policy principles that addressed macro-financial, legal and regulatory, and international coordination issues. The proposed principles were mainly…
Continuing its increased scrutiny of the cryptocurrency industry, the U.S. Federal Reserve released a new statement on Thursday reminding banks of the risks inherent in dealing in cryptocurrency and related assets. “Certain sources of funding from crypto-asset-related entities may pose heightened liquidity risks to banking organizations due to the unpredictability of the scale and timing of deposit inflows and outflows,”…
Streaming music giant Spotify has rolled out a new token-gated playlist pilot as its latest Web3 experiment. Joining the pilot are a handful of NFT projects, including Overlord and Kingship, letting holders from each project test out a unique crypto integration with the streaming platform. Essentially, the feature lets members of those particular communities connect a crypto wallet holding one of…
The original manuscript of Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash — the book which coined the term “Metaverse,” — will be auctioned by Sotheby’s, according to a page on Sotheby’s official website. The auction is part of a Feb. 23 series called “Infocalypse” that includes six physical and six digital items related to the famous book. The original manuscript is in Lot 2…
