Us regulatory trifecta: Bittrex, Paxful and Stablecoin

On the night of April 17, when bitcoin fell below $30,000, a theory circulated in the community that the crash was due to US regulation.

Every rise and fall is hindsight, but since the Hong Kong meeting is seen by some as the spark for last week's rally, it is logical to see western regulation as a bearish signal.

In fact, the West's latest round of strong regulation of encryption has been marked by three events in just two weeks.

The SEC accused Bittrex, a crypto trading platform

Ritchie Lai, co-founder and CEO of crypto trading platform Bittrex, released a statement on April 1 stating that the company will close its US platform on April 30, citing "the current regulatory and economic environment in the US, where continuing operations is not economically feasible and regulatory requirements are often unclear, And enforced without proper discussion ".

On April 17, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division recommended that the SEC Sue Bittrex for alleged violations of investor protection laws. David Maria, Bittrex's general counsel, said the division informed Bittrex in March of the potential SEC action. In its Wells Notice to Bittrex, the SEC said Bittrex violated the law by operating as a trading platform, broker-dealer and clearing house without registering with regulators.

That night,The SEC filed charges against Bittrex and its former CEO for failing to register a trading platform, and listed OMG, DASH, ALGO, TKN, NGC, and IHT as securities traded on Bittrex.

The House Financial Services Committee has released a draft Stablecoin bill

Yesterday news, the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee released the draft version of the Stablecoin bill, the content of stablecoin mortgage assets, stablecoin compliance support, entities to issue stablecoin application process and other aspects.

The bill first clarified that once it takes effect, any bank or non-bank stablecoin issuing entity must be registered and licensed, and the regulator must respond to the registration application within 90 days, or it will be automatically approved. The penalty for operating unlicensed stablecoin issuers is $100,000 per day.

In addition,The legislation would explicitly give non-bank stablecoin issuers full access to central bank deposit accounts (i.e., Federal Reserve accounts) and central bank borrowingEven the Treasury admits that central-bank deposits are likely to provide the safest asset backing. Other acceptable stablecoin-backed assets include physical cash, Treasury bills, and Treasury-based repurchase agreements (repos),The draft document does not list commercial bank deposits as non-bank stablecoin permitted assets.

最后，该法案还将对「内生抵押稳定币」实行为期两年的暂停，其中包括算法稳定币。目的是给财政部、SEC 和货币监理署足够的时间来「研究」该问题。

In addition, the House Financial Services subcommittee will hold a hearing on stablecoins next Wednesday, Attendees included Dante Disparte, chief strategy officer at Circle, Jake Chervinsky, chief policy officer at the Blockchain Association, Austin Campbell, professor at Columbia University, and Adrienne Harris, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services.

Similarly, Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor of the Bank of England, said in a speech at the annual Innovation Finance Global Summit yesterday that the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority plan to consult later this year on new rules for Stablecoins, which will seek to regulate stablecoins in the same way as commercial bank currencies.

Paxful, a Bitcoin peer-to-peer marketplace, shut down

On April 4, Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful, a Bitcoin peer-to-peer marketplace, announced that Paxfu was suspending operations and said the suspension would likely be permanent. "Regulatory challenges in the industry continue to grow, particularly in the peer-to-peer market and in the United States, and we will pursue the safest option while we address these issues," Youssef said.

Then, according to court documents revealed on April 7, Paxful's co-founders, Artur Schaback and Ray Youssef, are suing each other over control of the company and making multiple allegations against each other. The charges include embezzlement of company funds, money laundering and evading U.S. sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, Ray Youssef plans to launch a new platform called Civilization Kit (Civ Kit), Civ Kit is a decentralized peer-to-peer bitcoin exchange application built on top of Jack Dorsey-backed decentralized social media protocol Nostr.

It's hard to tell the truth about Paxful, but the scale of service is inevitable when it's a decentralized business. In the increasingly bright regulatory headlights of the United States, people can't fake their self-fear.

It rains in the west.

At Web3 Conference in Hong Kong last week, the industry reveled in the regional policy shift, and none of the core Ethereum developers, such as V God, showed up. This is even more remarkable when one considers the longstanding relationship between Wanxiang, the promoter of the activity, and V God.

Yesterday, after the conclusion of the Hong Kong conference, organizers confirmed that eight Ethereum Foundation members including V God will attend the Ethereum conference EDCON 2023 in Montenegro in May. Former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, Gitcoin co-founder Scott Moore, StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson, Matter Labs co-founder Alex Gluchowski, and Polygon zkEVM Technical Director Jordi Baylina and others will also attend.

In a global economy that continues to weaken, laxity and strictness can change from time to time. Maybe we need to put on the glasses of time. Where the true value of Crypto lies in the changing landscape will become more and more clear.

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