All posts tagged: SECs

US SEC’s Crypto Task Force to Host Roundtables to Discuss Crypto Regulation

US SEC’s Crypto Task Force to Host Roundtables to Discuss Crypto Regulation

Published by Webster

The US is moving towards getting a comprehensive set of Web3 rules under the crypto-friendly presidency of Donald Trump. The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Crypto Task Force said Monday it would host a series of roundtable meetings to gather public insights on its regulatory approach towards Web3. Mark T. Uyeda, the acting chairperson of the SEC, will oversee the roundtable discussions that will start this month. The inaugural session of the roundtable series, dubbed the ‘Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity’, has been slated for March 21 at the SEC office in Washington DC. The first session will hold discussions on defining the status of cryptocurrencies as securities. “The initial roundtable on March 21 is open to the public at the SEC’s headquarters. The number of in-person participants may be limited. The primary discussion will be streamed live on SEC.gov, and a recording will be posted at a later date,” the federal agency explained. SEC commissioner Hester M. Peirce said the roundtable discussions were an important step towards engaging with the public. “I am …

Divya Deshmukh pulls rabbit out of hat with 17 secs left

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Divya Deshmukh was in a completely losing position in the fourth round of the Chess Olympiad in Budapest, with just about 17 seconds left on the clock, with three pawns lesser on the board than her opponent, women’s grandmaster Mitra Hejazipour. She had one move to make to stave off doom. By this stage, the top seeded Indian women’s team’s fate in the tie against France was in the balance, with Vaishali drawing her game but Harika Dronavalli and Tania Sachdev still battling in positions that could have swung either way. One of the nuances of the Chess Olympiad is that individual victories or losses can be easily offset by the rest of the team’s results so players always have to keep an eye on the adjoining boards to decide if they should push their own opponent, or settle for bloodless draws. Tania Sachdev, in fact, who was asked to play on the fourth board in place of Vantika Agarwal on Saturday, was caught in a complicated position at that stage. But she chose to …

A SIM-swapping attack was behind the SEC’s fake Bitcoin post

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The Securities and Exchange Commission has linked a SIM swapping attack to its account breach on X earlier this month, which led to the creation of a fake post announcing approval of Bitcoin ETFs that caused the cryptocurrency’s price to spike. In an update on Monday, the SEC says an “unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent ‘SIM swap’ attack.” A SIM-swapping attack occurs when a bad actor obtains a victim’s phone number through techniques like social engineering. That allows the attacker to intercept calls and texts intended for the victim, including two-factor authentication codes, which they can then use to sign in to their victim’s accounts. In the SEC’s case, a bad actor reset the password for its X account after gaining control of the phone number linked to it. While the SEC says multifactor authentication was previously enabled on the agency’s X account, it was “disabled by X Support, at the staff’s request, in July 2023 due to issues accessing the account.” The SEC …

Software Firm MicroStrategy Buys Bitcoin Worth $615.7 Million Ahead of SEC’s Spot ETF Decision

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Software firm MicroStrategy said on Wednesday it had bought bitcoin worth about $615.7 million (Rs. 5,120 crore) in cash, amid growing expectations that the top US markets regulator will soon approve a spot bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF). The company and its subsidiaries purchased about 14,620 bitcoins at an average price of roughly $42,110 (roughly Rs. 35 lakh) between November 30 and December 26, according to a regulatory filing. Shares of the Virginia-based company jumped 8 percent in afternoon trading. MicroStrategy has surged over 350 percent this year, while bitcoin has gained nearly 160 percent. MicroStrategy’s move to buy bitcoin to protect the value of its reserve assets has helped strengthen the appeal of the firm’s stock, which tends to move in tandem with the digital asset. “This is not a short-term trading strategy but rather reflects a belief that bitcoin will ultimately prove a superior store of value,” said analysts at TD Cowen. “The company remains an attractive vehicle for investors looking to gain bitcoin exposure,” the brokerage added. In recent months, a spate …

Noodles in 65 secs to August’s condom craze: Swiggy Instamart 2023 trends | Trending

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As we approach 2024, brands are publishing their annual reports, showcasing the trends that define consumer behaviour in 202. Swiggy Instamart has also released its ‘commerce trends’ for the year, providing insights into groceries people ordered throughout the year. Swiggy Instamart delivered a packet of instant noodles in Delhi in a record time of 65 seconds.(Representational pic/Unsplash) One of the most surprising things revealed in this report was that a customer from Jaipur placed not just two or three but a total of 67 orders on Swiggy Instamart. While mentioning this in the report, the company humorously added, “We’re not sure how big his party was but would’ve loved an invite!” Stay tuned with breaking news on HT Channel on Facebook. Join Now Delhi residents made their mark too, with one individual managing to slash “ ₹ 1,70,102 on his yearly grocery bill of ₹ 12,87,920.” Additionally, someone else from Delhi placed an order for 99 items in a single order, mostly consisting of chips, chocolates, and cookies. Down in Chennai, a customer ordered coffee, …

In the SEC’s Suit Against Bankman-Fried, What About the Customers?

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Federal prosecutors and regulators from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and US Commodity Futures Trading Commission all told a similar story on Tuesday about Sam Bankman-Fried’s alleged scheme to divert billions of dollars of customers’ money from the FTX crypto exchange to Alameda Research. They all accused Bankman-Fried of fraud, asserting that he repeatedly lied when he insisted that FTX customers’ money was safe, secure and completely segregated from the affiliated but purportedly independent Alameda. According to the indictment unsealed on Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan and separate complaints filed on Tuesday by the SEC and the CFTC, Bankman-Fried knew or should have known that money was being siphoned from FTX customer accounts to fund Alameda’s speculative trading and that, despite its repeated protestations to the contrary, FTX gave Alameda special trading privileges that ultimately proved disastrous for the platform and its customers. Who were the victims of this alleged fraud? The CFTC’s complaint highlighted the deception of FTX users who, in the regulator’s telling, were duped into believing that their money was …