Regulatory Policy

Focuses on global regulatory developments, policy changes, and compliance requirements. It provides in-depth analysis of government regulations and their impact on the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries, helping businesses and investors proactively manage policy-related risks.

Japan’s Banking Giants Unite for Yen Stablecoin Launch

Three of Japan's largest banks — Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, and Mizuho Financial Group — will jointly issue a yen stablecoin by March, the end of the current financial year. They have formed a council to prepare for the launch, with the Japanese Financial Services Agency and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party expressing support. Yen-pegged stablecoins currently represent a minor part of the market, with JPYC being the most notable example. Separately, the New York State Department of Financial Services has proposed stringent new regulations for stablecoin issuers, focusing on stricter reserve custody rules, enhanced risk management, and mandatory executive certifications and audits.

TheNewsCrypto2h ago

Japan’s Banking Giants Unite for Yen Stablecoin Launch

TheNewsCrypto2h ago

Banks Battle Stablecoins: Where Will Deposits Ultimately Flow?

Banks are facing a challenge from stablecoins, which offer near-instant, low-cost global transfers and the potential for higher yields via DeFi protocols, threatening traditional deposit bases. The article draws a historical parallel to the 1970s when Merrill Lynch's Cash Management Account (CMA) circumvented Regulation Q's interest rate caps by funneling client funds into money market funds, forcing banks to adapt with new products. Today, the competition centers on two forms of digital dollars. The first is stablecoins (e.g., USDC), which remove funds from bank balance sheets, reducing lending capital. While regulations like the GENIUS Act prohibit issuers from paying interest, users can seek yield elsewhere in crypto. The second is tokenized deposits, where banks represent deposits as on-chain tokens for efficient settlement while keeping funds insured and on their books for lending. Bank consortia like the Clearing House network and Cari Network are developing such platforms. The core battleground is control over the movement and utility of money. SoFi Bank exemplifies a potential fusion path by launching its own stablecoin (SoFiUSD) and allowing seamless conversion to/from insured, interest-bearing tokenized deposits within one app, giving users flexibility between crypto's efficiency and banking's safety/yield. The article concludes that blockchain technology is not replacing bank deposits but forcing the industry to disaggregate and improve its value propositions—security, yield, and liquidity. The ultimate winners will be institutions that enable frictionless switching between these attributes, much as banks historically absorbed innovations (like the CMA) to maintain their role.

marsbit5h ago

Banks Battle Stablecoins: Where Will Deposits Ultimately Flow?

marsbit5h ago

The United States Finally Gets Perpetual Futures Contracts

The U.S. has finally entered the era of regulated perpetual futures contracts, a transformative development for the crypto derivatives market. On May 29, the CFTC approved Kalshi to list the first-ever regulated Bitcoin perpetual futures contract in the U.S. and allowed Coinbase to route its customers to global perpetual and options trading via Deribit. This approval acknowledges the critical role of perpetuals, which have grown to a staggering $90 trillion in annual trading volume, surpassing the combined GDP of the world's ten largest economies. Perpetual contracts, pioneered by BitMEX in 2016, eliminate expiration dates and use a funding rate mechanism to track the underlying asset's price, offering traders efficient, high-leverage exposure without the need for periodic rollovers. While this legitimizes the product category dominated by offshore and decentralized exchanges like Hyperliquid, U.S.-regulated offerings remain distinct. They are limited to Bitcoin, offer lower leverage caps (around 10x vs. 50-100x offshore), and provide CFTC-mandated protections. This creates separate markets for regulated U.S. institutions and the global, high-leverage retail traders. The significance extends far beyond crypto. Perpetuals are rapidly expanding to trade a wide array of assets like commodities (silver, oil), equities (Nvidia, Tesla), and even prediction markets. Their 24/7, digital-native structure challenges traditional time-bound derivatives. Hyperliquid, a leading decentralized exchange, exemplifies this shift, with daily volumes sometimes exceeding Bitcoin for assets like silver and attracting attention from traditional financial giants like ICE. This regulatory shift intensifies competition, potentially compressing fees and profits for established players like Coinbase as traders seek lower-cost venues. While perpetuals won't fully replace options or traditional futures—which offer unique risk profiles—they represent a superior, more economical vehicle for the vast majority of purely directional, leveraged trading activity. The $90 trillion annual volume is a testament to their overwhelming success and enduring appeal.

marsbit7h ago

The United States Finally Gets Perpetual Futures Contracts

marsbit7h ago

CLARITY Act Could Clear This Year, Solana Policy Institute Says—But 4 Demands Remain To Be Met

Kristin Smith, President of the Solana Policy Institute and CEO of the Blockchain Association, urged the U.S. Senate to pass the CLARITY Act, emphasizing four specific priorities must be met first. The legislation aims to provide legal clarity for public blockchain operations, focusing on protecting open-source developers and infrastructure providers who do not custody assets or control transactions. Smith argued that strong developer protections, including the key Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA), enhance enforcement by clearly distinguishing between different market participants, allowing authorities to target bad actors more effectively. She warned that weakening these protections could undermine the act's goal of giving builders confidence to operate in the U.S. Smith's position is to protect developers, target bad actors, preserve open-source innovation, and maintain U.S. leadership in crypto.

bitcoinist9h ago

CLARITY Act Could Clear This Year, Solana Policy Institute Says—But 4 Demands Remain To Be Met

bitcoinist9h ago

La Liga Team Bets $1 Million Against Themselves Before Match: Does Using Prediction Markets for Insurance Comply with Sports Regulations?

A Spanish La Liga club, reportedly Osasuna, purchased insurance against relegation and was linked to a transaction of over $1 million on the prediction market platform Kalshi, betting against its own victory in a crucial season-ending match. While Osasuna confirmed buying €1.2 million insurance for a potential €6 million payout in case of relegation through broker Howden, it did not confirm involvement with Kalshi. The reported trade involved intermediaries like Game Point Capital and Greenlight Commodities, with quant firm Susquehanna as the counterparty. This incident highlights the blurring line between financial hedging and gambling in prediction markets. Such markets allow trading on future event outcomes, like sports results. In the US, Kalshi operates as a regulated event contract market under the CFTC. However, Spanish authorities recently initiated penalties against Kalshi and Polymarket, considering their activities unlicensed gambling. The case raises core questions about prediction markets: who can trade, how insider information is handled, and whether participants can influence outcomes, especially in sports where results are human-driven. While leagues like La Liga and Serie A have partnered with Polymarket in North America, the regulatory clash and potential for conflicts of interest, as seen in this club's alleged transaction, present significant challenges as prediction markets evolve toward institutional risk management.

Foresight NewsYesterday 10:19

La Liga Team Bets $1 Million Against Themselves Before Match: Does Using Prediction Markets for Insurance Comply with Sports Regulations?

Foresight NewsYesterday 10:19

When Doing Cryptocurrency Payment, the First Thing is Licenses, What is the Second?

When launching a crypto payment business, obtaining the necessary licenses is the crucial first step. However, the second, and arguably more critical, step is designing a comprehensive operational framework that forms a coherent business loop. This loop must be clearly understood and executable by all stakeholders: banks, payment partners, exchanges, on-chain analytics providers, regulators, and your internal team. Many projects mistakenly believe a single license permits all operations. Licenses merely grant entry; they don't define how the specific business functions. The real challenge lies in detailing every aspect of the workflow. This involves clarifying the customer base, the flow of fiat and crypto assets, the settlement process, and establishing clear lines of responsibility for risks like AML compliance, sanctions screening, chargebacks, and regulatory inquiries. A robust framework must answer seven core questions: Who are the clients and merchants? Who collects fiat and crypto? Who handles conversion and custody? And who is ultimately accountable for compliance and risk management? Projects often fail not from a lack of licensing, but during due diligence when they cannot convincingly explain these operational details. Therefore, beyond securing licenses, the priority must be constructing a closed-loop system. This system ensures the business model is transparent, risks are managed, responsibilities are delineated, contracts are aligned, and the entire process is comprehensible to partners and regulators. The true competitive edge in crypto payments lies not in acquiring a license quickly, but in integrating licensing, banking, compliance, and operations into a sustainable and executable whole.

marsbitYesterday 06:31

When Doing Cryptocurrency Payment, the First Thing is Licenses, What is the Second?

marsbitYesterday 06:31

FTX Co-Founder Bankman-Fried Requests Trump Pardon–FTT Soars 45%

Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has formally requested a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. He confirmed the move in an interview, stating he "absolutely" wants clemency. In March 2024, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years for fraud and conspiracy linked to FTX's collapse, which caused billions in losses for customers and investors. Despite his conviction, he maintains the case was unfair, claiming FTX customers have now been repaid with interest. Following news of his pardon bid, FTX's native token, FTT, surged 45% in price, though it remains 99.5% below its all-time high.

bitcoinistYesterday 21:02

FTX Co-Founder Bankman-Fried Requests Trump Pardon–FTT Soars 45%

bitcoinistYesterday 21:02

China Banned Bitcoin — Then One Of Its Highest Courts Just Ruled It’s Protected Property

China's Supreme People's Procuratorate has published a landmark case ruling that Bitcoin qualifies as legally protected property under the country's criminal law. The case involved a defendant sentenced to nearly 11 years in prison for stealing 107 Bitcoin, valued based on the proceeds from its sale. Prosecutors successfully argued that Bitcoin holds economic value and can be exclusively controlled, meeting the statutory definition of property. This ruling creates a striking contradiction within China's legal framework, as the country has maintained a comprehensive ban on all cryptocurrency transactions since 2021. Despite this official prohibition, Chinese courts have consistently affirmed Bitcoin's status as protected property in criminal cases. By publishing this case as guidance, the Supreme People's Procuratorate signals to prosecutors nationwide to treat Bitcoin theft as property theft, valued at market rates, directly conflicting with the overarching ban on its use and trade.

bitcoinist2 days ago 15:15

China Banned Bitcoin — Then One Of Its Highest Courts Just Ruled It’s Protected Property

bitcoinist2 days ago 15:15

The First Case on AI Agents: What Was Adjudicated?

"The First 'Agent' Ruling: What Was Decided?" On April 30, the Guangzhou Internet Court issued a ruling—China's first behavior preservation order in the intelligent agent (AI agent) field. The defendant, an open-source AI agent software, was ordered to stop downloads, cease actions that bypassed a platform's technical protection measures, and delete related tutorials and data. The core issue: the software used the operating system's "accessibility service" permissions to automate user interactions within other apps without those platforms' authorization. This mirrors a recent US case where Amazon sued Perplexity for similar reasons—bypassing Amazon's API to directly scrape and interact with its pages—and won a preliminary injunction. Both rulings establish a crucial legal boundary for the AI agent era: agents cannot operate unchecked. The article argues the fundamental legal principle emerging is one of **dual authorization**. An AI agent requires both **user consent** AND **platform consent** to operate legitimately within that platform's ecosystem. Bypassing platform rules through system-level permissions, even with user permission, undermines platform responsibilities for content moderation, data security, and user privacy, creating liability issues. The piece uses the evolution of "Doubao Phone" (an AI-integrated smartphone) as a case study. Its initial, aggressive version that bypassed platform controls faced roadblocks. Its upcoming 2.0 version is reportedly pivoting to negotiate API access and authorization deals with major platforms (like Alibaba's ecosystem), seen as a strategic adaptation to the new regulatory reality. A global trend is identified: the era of unregulated, "wild west" growth for AI agents is ending, replaced by a **compliance race**. This raises barriers to entry, as securing platform authorizations becomes a new cost. Open-source status is also not a legal shield if the code facilitates bypassing technical protections. In conclusion, these first rulings target not the largest, but the most **aggressive and representative** cases. By setting precedent with them, regulators are efficiently steering the entire industry towards a new, more regulated operating paradigm defined by dual authorization and platform cooperation.

marsbit2 days ago 10:31

The First Case on AI Agents: What Was Adjudicated?

marsbit2 days ago 10:31

Ray Dalio: The Revival of a China-led 'Tribute System', and the AI Industry Will Develop Like the EV Industry

Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, discusses shifting global power dynamics and the AI competition between the U.S. and China. He argues U.S. credibility as a global power willing to fight for its interests is declining, while China is accumulating wealth and influence. Dalio observes a trend where world leaders visit China, which he compares to a modern "tribute system"—not oppressive, but a hierarchy where nations acknowledge China's strength, affecting trade and security. This shift creates market uncertainty, prompting investors to seek asset diversification, including gold. Regarding AI, Dalio contrasts the U.S. and Chinese approaches. U.S. companies like OpenAI focus on monetization and subscriptions for revenue. In contrast, China treats AI as a public utility, akin to electricity or water, aiming for widespread worker accessibility over immediate profitability. He draws a parallel to China's electric vehicle industry success, where companies like BYD achieved rapid market growth. Dalio and JPMorgan's Mary Callahan Erdoes note China lacks U.S.-style fear of AI displacing jobs; instead, it focuses on leveraging AI for development and dominance in next-generation industries like robotics.

Odaily星球日报2 days ago 08:27

Ray Dalio: The Revival of a China-led 'Tribute System', and the AI Industry Will Develop Like the EV Industry