"El comunicado no puede ser más explícito en su intención. Ordena a la Unidad de Integridad del Mercado y Grandes Fraudes “dejar de controlar las criptomonedas”. También instruye a los fiscales del estado a “no presentar cargos por violaciones de la regulación en casos que involucren activos digitales”. No podrán investigar ni perseguir delitos como transferencias de dinero no autorizadas, ofertas de valores no registradas, operaciones de corredores y agentes de Bolsa no registrados y cualquier infracción de los requisitos de registro bajo las leyes de Valores Bursátiles, Productos de Inversión o de Secreto Bancario. Libera a las cripto de reportar cualquier incidencia vinculada con crímenes financieros típicos de la industria, como el lavado de dinero o la financiación ilegal, a menos que sepan “concretamente” que el acusado “ha violado conscientemente y de manera deliberada un requisito específico”.

Las razones parecen obvias. La industria de las criptomonedas recaudó más de 200 millones de dólares para Trump en 2024. A cambio, Trump ha sido muy generoso con el sector. Una de las primeras órdenes ejecutivas del presidente fue la creación de una reserva federal de Bitcoin y otras criptomonedas emitidas por algunos de sus principales donantes. De momento, ha usado reservas que Justicia y las agencias federales han confiscado en sus operaciones contra cibercriminales, pero ahora amenaza con usar las reservas de oro federales para engordar las de Bitcoin."

https://elpais.com/opinion/2025-04-10/criptos-sin-ley-el-plan-de-trump.html

"A Monday night memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, citing Trump’s crypto executive orders, has dismantled the Department of Justice’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) and directed the agency’s Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit to “cease cryptocurrency enforcement”.1 The memo also directs prosecutors to “not charge regulatory violations in cases involving digital assets including but not limited to unlicensed money transmitting..., violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, unregistered securities offering violations, unregistered broker-dealer violations, and other violations of registration requirements under the Commodity Exchange Act” unless they have specific knowledge that the defendant knowingly and willfully violated a specific requirement — erecting a major barrier to prosecuting such cases.

The National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, established in October 2021 and merged with the computer crimes section in July 2023, helped investigate and prosecute cases including the historic Binance case [I44] — which was based on charges that the DOJ is now explicitly discouraged from prosecuting. "

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-81/

The U.S. Justice Department is disbanding its National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and ordering prosecutors to narrow crypto investigations to focus on drug cartels and terrorist groups, according to a memo. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/04/09/tech/us-justice-dept-crypto-trump/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #tech #cryptocurrencies #us #republicans #donaldtrump #elonmusk #jdvance #markets

Trump’s justice department to disband unit investigating crypto fraud https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/08/trump-crypto-doj #Trumpadministration #Cryptocurrencies #DonaldTrump #USpolitics #USnews

North Korea’s latest crypto hack reveals Web3’s security weakness…

As North Korea’s “ClickFake” campaign draws renewed attention to cyberattacks on crypto firms, security experts say Web3’s biggest vulnerability isn’t smart contracts — it’s people... #northkorea #cryptocurrencies #web3 #hacking #cybersecurity #cyberattacks

https://formuchdeliberation.wordpress.com/2025/04/05/north-koreas-latest-crypto-hack-reveals-web3s-security-weakness/

Trump Brothers Help Launch Crypto-Mining Venture https://www.byteseu.com/881563/ #bitcoin #BitcoinMining #blockchain #Crypto #CryptoMining #Cryptocurrencies #CryptoCurrency #DigitalAssets #DonaldTrump #DonaldTrumpJr. #EricTrump #Hut8 #News #partnerships #PYMNTSNews #What'sHot

"As the Trump administration continues the process of establishing a regulatory environment maximally beneficial to the cryptocurrency industry, Trump is doing the only thing you might expect of him: increasing his business interests in the crypto sector so that he too can personally profit.

His Trump Media organization, which is the business entity behind the Truth Social platform, has announced a partnership with the Singapore-based Crypto.com to launch various exchange-traded products of the both crypto and non-crypto varieties. The overseas Crypto.com is a bit of an odd choice in partner, given the press release’s emphasis that the project will have a “Made in America focus”.6

Though the details were scarce, the press release suggested the crypto ETFs would “include a unique ETF basket of cryptocurrencies incorporating Bitcoin, Cronos, and other crypto assets.” (Cronos is the token issued by Crypto.com subsidiary Cronos Labs.) All of this will happen via the “Truth.Fi” brand, a business venture announced by Trump Media in February [I76]. There has been some controversy over this deal in the crypto world, centering around a decision by Crypto.com and Cronos to fund the deal by “reissuing” tokens notionally worth $7 billion that had been burned (ostensibly permanently destroyed) in 2021.7 The proposal was unpopular among many Cronos holders, and comments on the proposal were universally negative."

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-80/

#USA #Trump #Crypto #Cryptocurrencies #PonziSche,e

Your periodic reminder that I don't want anything to do with #cryptocurrencies and #blockchains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nv0Ol-R5Q

via
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2022/06/on-the-dangers-of-cryptocurrencies-and-the-uselessness-of-blockchain.html

"According to a memo circulating among State Department staff and reviewed by WIRED, the Trump administration plans to rename the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as US International Humanitarian Assistance (IHA), and to bring it directly under the secretary of state. The document, on which Politico first reported, states that as part of its reorganization, the agency will “leverage blockchain technology” as part of its procurement process.

“All distributions would also be secured and traced via blockchain technology to radically increase security, transparency, and traceability,” the memo reads. “This approach would encourage innovation and efficiency among implementing partners and allow for more flexible and responsive programming focused on tangible impact rather than simply completing activities and inputs.”

The memo does not make clear what specifically this means—if it would encompass doing cash transfers in some kind of cryptocurrency or stablecoin, for example, or simply mean using a blockchain ledger to track aid disbursement."

#USA #USAID #Trump #Blockchain #Crypto #Cryptocurrencies #HumanitarianAid

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/03/trump-administrations-blockchain-plan-for-usaid-is-a-real-head-scratcher/

"I have returned from my quick trip to Austin for a few days at the South by Southwest conference. Last time I was there, Silicon Valley Bank fell apart, which made for a rather entertaining weekend to spend as a fly on the wall around the various tech executives who make their pilgrimages to the conference. By that point in 2023, the shine had already mostly worn off on the crypto excitement compared to the crypto extravaganzas that characterized SXSW during crypto’s peak hype years.

This time, although crypto prices are back up, crypto excitement didn’t seem to be.
(...)
There was a great panel about “Openness Under Pressure”, which touched on similar points as my recent newsletter about open access amid widespread AI scraping. Bluesky CEO Jay Graber took the mainstage for a keynote with the inimitable tech journalist (and Bluesky board member) Mike Masnick. She wore an oversized black t-shirt printed with black text that read mundus sine Caesaribus (“a world without Caesars”). It was immediately recognizable to those who had seen Mark Zuckerberg’s custom black-on-black aut Zuck aut nihil (“Zuck or nothing”) shirt at a Meta event last year, an egomaniacal play on aut Caesar aut nihilb and a nod to the emperor after whom Zuckerberg has long styled himself.

Her message was clear: we need a world resilient to the outsized power of Zuckerbergian billionaire emperors. And we need platforms that are, as she and Masnick put it, “billionaire-proof”. I couldn’t agree more.

Sadly, for now we remain in a very much not billionaire-proof world, so I will now update you on how that’s all been going."

https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-79/

Farcaster is Coming To Coinbase Wallet

Coinbase is working on an updated wallet app that acts as a Farcaster social client, in a bid to onboard the next billion crypto users.

https://wedistribute.org/2025/03/farcaster-coinbase/

"By setting up a crypto reserve containing dollar-backed stablecoins, the US authorities are signalling to foreign dollar holders that the US government endorses their ownership of these cryptocurrencies. During upcoming negotiations with various governments, with tariffs dangling like the sword of Damocles above their head, the President will drop subtle hints about how pleased he will be if foreign investors buy these stablecoins using their own dollars. If they do buy them, the dollar supply will increase, the dollar exchange rate will dip, no other fiat currency will emerge as a potential suitor to the dollar’s reserve currency status, and dollar-denominated stablecoins will rise in value. As these tokens will now be worth more than a dollar, their issuer will have an incentive to issue more tokens to restore the one-to-one exchange rate with the dollar. In the process, they will buy, with proceeds from the additional tokens they issue and sell, more long-dated US Treasuries to backstop their increased token supply. Bingo! Trump’s twin strategy is fulfilled: the dollar is devalued while demand for long-term US government debt rises, thus pushing down US Treasury yields and his government’s debt servicing costs."

https://unherd.com/2025/03/trumps-crypto-time-bomb/

The creation of a "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve" in the United States is further proof of President Donald Trump's support for the cryptocurrency sector. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2025/03/16/markets/trump-bitcoin-reserve-focus/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #business #markets #bitcoin #currencies #us #donaldtrump #cryptocurrencies

" If an asset will indeed never be sold, how would the US draw upon its stored value in order to, say, backstop the dollar or pay outstanding debts? What’s the point of a store of value if that value can never be accessed?

Perhaps Trump or some future president would renege on this promise to HODL the bitcoin in the reserve and instead opt to sell it to use for some purpose. But the United States is already one of the largest holders of bitcoin, and its occasional sales of these assets historically cause substantial market volatility. Now the government stands to become an even larger holder, and its new policy stance to never sell the bitcoin means that any later deviation would likely cause additional fear among the rest of the market. It would be Schrödinger’s bitcoin: valuable only so long as the US never tried to access that value."

https://www.citationneeded.news/crypto-reserves-no-public-good-no-principles/

"Las instituciones son frágiles. Los bancos fallaron en 1929, los mercados colapsaron en 2008. Hay motivos para mantener un sistema financiero alternativo internacional. Una reserva de bitcoin permitiría al Gobierno tener liquidez, y sostener los servicios críticos durante un colapso. La pregunta es si la administración Trump está legitimando ese sistema financiero para proteger a la ciudadanía o para desplumarla. Y qué recursos tiene Europa para protegerse de sus peores consecuencias."

https://elpais.com/opinion/2025-03-10/la-reserva-estrategica-de-bitcoins.html

Economists are baffled by the plan, pointing out two flaws: #bitcoin's price isn't guaranteed and selling it for dollars could crash the market. It also doesn't generate revenue like stocks.

https://www.wired.com/story/trumps-strategic-bitcoin-reserve-plan-comes-with-a-twist/ #Trump #Cryptocurrencies #Politics

‘You get sucked in’: crypto scam victims on how they lost up to £162,000 - https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/mar/07/crypto-scam-victims sad stuff about clever and unscrupulous Georgian "skameri"... #cryptocurrencies

"Coinbase co-founder and CEO Brian Armstrong cheered the idea to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“100% the right call,” Armstrong wrote in February. He was responding to a taunt by Elon Musk, who posted an image of a tombstone and the line “CFPB RIP.”

The agency was gutted by Donald Trump’s administration around the same time, to cheers by Armstrong and other crypto execs like Tyler Winklevoss of Gemini.

What Armstrong didn’t mention was that the CFPB had received 7,775 complaints from Coinbase customers since the exchange’s debut in 2011.

The most recent complaint to the CFPB was filed on February 22. The reports range from 1,734 complaints about issues with funds not being available when promised to 1,879 complaints about potential scams."

https://www.dlnews.com/articles/regulation/coinbase-ceo-cheers-cfpb-closure-as-complaints-mount/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=