- South Korea’s Money Laundering Watchdog Flags 16 Crypto Firms for Operating Without Registration
South Korea’s anti-money laundering authority is going after 16 foreign crypto firms it says have been operating in the country without proper regulatory approval, a statement published Thursday shows.
The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU), part of South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC), said the firms had advertised crypto and offered services to Koreans without obtaining the requisite registration.
The firms it said were conducting “illegal business activities” are KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex, XT.com, Bitrue, ZB.com, Bitglobal, CoinW, CoinEX, AAX, ZoomEX, Poloniex, BTCEX, BTCC, DigiFinex and Pionex.
- British Fintech Revolut Granted Crypto License in Cyprus
A leader in the neobank sector, Revolut, has received approval from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) to operate with cryptocurrencies and other digital assets. The company plans to establish a cryptocurrency hub on the island that will allow it to offer additional services to its 17 million European customers under the EU’s upcoming regulations.
CySEC’s approval comes after Revolut obtained similar authorizations in other markets, such as Spain and Singapore, the Cyprus Mail noted in a report. These licenses will enable the London-headquartered fintech to expand its sales in a number of jurisdictions. The platform will continue to serve its British clients, who form the bulk of its customer base, through its U.K.-registered entity.
https://news.bitcoin.com/british-fintech-revolut-granted-crypto-license-in-cyprus/
- SHIB, Dogecoin Up Double-Digits Over the Week
Dogecoin (DOGE) and Shiba Inu (SHIB), the two largest meme coins by market cap, followed the market’s broader bearish trend to post losses over the last day, dropping 3.8% and 5.7%, respectively.
Despite the decline, both cryptocurrencies have stood out from the rest of the market thanks to hefty gains in the past seven days.
DOGE, which earlier this week hit a 10-week high above $0.088, was trading at $0.081 by press time, up 13.4% over the week; SHIB is changing hands at $0.00001488, up a massive 20.6% over the same span.
Trading volumes for DOGE and SHIB dwindled significantly in the last day, dropping by 60% and 20%, respectively.
https://decrypt.co/107708/shiba-inu-dogecoin-up-double-digits-week
- Celsius Network Investment Results In $150M Loss For Canadian Fund Giant
Celsius Network, the crypto lending firm founded by Alex Mashinsky, reported almost $2 billion in losses to New York courts. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States after halting its operations and defaulting on a number of debt commitments to its clients and investors.
Canadian fund manager giant Caisse de Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) has been a victim of the Celsius Network downfall. The company’s CEO, Charles Émond, took the blame for the $150 million that they are expecting to lose from their capital injection into the crypto lending platform.
The executive confirmed that they are currently assessing their legal options to try to receive compensation from Celsius Network at a half-year results presentation with its clients. Émond believes that the fund allocated capital in a nascent sector. He said:
For us it’s clear when we look at all of this, even if the last chapter has not been written, that we went in too soon into a sector that was in transition, with a business that had to manage extremely quick growth.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7178301
- Aussies buy fuel and chips with crypto across 175 fuel outlets
Convenience store and petrol station brand On The Run (OTR) has launched crypto payment support across all 175 of its petrol stations and convenience stores across Victoria, South Australia (SA), and Western Australia (WA) as of Thursday.
As previously reported, the move is part of a collaboration between OTR, Singapore-based exchange Crypto.com and DataMesh, a Sydney-based payment systems provider.
The exchange has provided its Pay Merchant service as a payment settlement layer, while Datamesh has provided the point of sale terminals.
Speaking with Cointelegraph, Crypto.com’s Asia & Pacific general manager Karl Mohan noted that it only took “eight weeks to from the time of proof of concept to the point of actually getting a full scalable production-ready environment.”
https://cointelegraph.com/news/aussies-buy-fuel-and-chips-with-crypto-across-175-fuel-outlets
- US Extradites Alleged Crypto Money Launderer From Netherlands
The United States has extradited an alleged cryptocurrency money launderer from the Netherlands, according to a Department of Justice press release.
Denis Mihaqloviv Dubnikov, 29, a Russian citizen, made an initial appearance in federal court in Portland, Oregon on Wednesday, and a five-day jury trial is scheduled to begin on Oct. 4. If convicted, Dubnikov faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the DOJ release said.
The DOJ cites court documents that allege Dubnikov and his accomplices laundered ransom payments extracted from victims of Ryuk ransomware attacks.
“After receiving ransom payments, Ryuk actors, Dubnikov and his co-conspirators, and others involved in the scheme, allegedly engaged in various financial transactions, including international financial transactions, to conceal the nature, source, location, ownership, and control of the ransom proceeds,” the DOJ release said.
Ryuk is a ransomware software that has targeted thousands of victims worldwide.
- Chainalysis: Illicit Crypto Activity Falls — Scam Revenue 65% Lower Than Last Year
Blockchain data analytics firm Chainalysis published its mid-year crypto crime update titled “Illicit Activity Falls With Rest of Market, With Some Notable Exceptions” on Tuesday.
The firm wrote that overall:
Illicit volumes are down just 15% year over year, compared to 36% for legitimate volumes.
Specifically, “Total scam revenue for 2022 currently sits at $1.6 billion, 65% lower than where it was through the end of July in 2021, and this decline appears linked to declining prices across different currencies,” Chainalysis noted.
Furthermore, “the cumulative number of individual transfers to scams so far in 2022 is the lowest it’s been in the past four years,” the firm added.
Chainalysis detailed:
Those numbers suggest that fewer people than ever are falling for cryptocurrency scams. One reason for this could be that with asset prices falling, cryptocurrency scams … are less enticing to potential victims.
- South Korea to Block KuCoin, Poloniex in Crackdown on Unregistered Crypto Exchanges
South Korean customers could lose access to more than a dozen crypto exchanges, as local authorities clamp down on foreign businesses who they say are operating in the country without proper registration.
Some 16 unregistered providers have been identified as offering services to Koreans without registering with the right authorities, a press release issued by the country’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) said on Thursday.
An intelligence unit of the FSC has reported the platforms to the country’s investigative authority, and asked that domestic access to their websites be blocked.
The exchanges in question were named as KuCoin, MEXC, Phemex, XT.com, Bitrue, ZB.com, Bitglobal, CoinW, CoinEX, AAX, ZoomEX, Poloniex, BTCEX, BTCC, DigiFinex, and Pionex.
- FDIC Accused of Blocking Crypto Companies’ Access to Banks
Whistleblowers in Senator Pat Toomey’s office have accused the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) of stifling banks in their efforts to expand on crypto work.
Federal regulators may have taken a step too far in their efforts to stop banks from working with cryptocurrency companies according to Republican Senator Pat Toomey. In a letter addressed to the Acting Chairman of the FDIC Martin Gruenberg, whistleblowers in Senator Toomey’s office have come forward to say that the FDIC “may be improperly taking action to deter banks from doing business with lawful cryptocurrency-related (crypto-related) companies.”
The FDIC is one of the most important banking regulators in the U.S. and ensures retail customer deposits and supervises banks to establish their safety. According to the letter, the FDIC has asked member banks “requesting that they refrain from expanding relationships with crypto-related companies, without providing any legal basis for doing so.” The letter asks Gruenberg to account for these actions and to turn over documentation relating to the FDIC’s work with cryptocurrencies.
https://www.binance.com/en/news/flash/7178299
- Aussie asset manager to offer crypto ETF using unique license variation
Australian asset manager Monochrome Asset Management has landed the country’s first Australian financial services license (AFSL) for a spot crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Jeff Yew, CEO of Monochrome Asset Management, said the AFSL approval is significant, as until this point, approved crypto ETFs in Australia only operate under general financial asset authorization and only indirectly hold crypto-assets.
Yew noted that Monochrome’s crypto ETFs, on the other hand, will directly hold the underlying crypto-assets and is specifically authorized by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) to do so.
The Monochrome executive said the approval represents a significant step forward for both the advice industry and retail investors:
“We see choice being a good thing for investors, particularly when dealing in the regulated space, as not all offerings are equal.”
