US SEC

Blockchain Association and DeFi Education Fund: The SEC's consolidated audit tracking has privacy issues

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the Blockchain Association and the DeFi Education Fund have stated that the new database operated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission raises privacy concerns for millions of people and could potentially trap digital assets.After the financial crisis, the SEC passed Rule 613 in 2012, requiring national securities exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to maintain a Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT). Former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton stated in 2017 that the goal was to allow regulators to oversee the securities market in a "comprehensive" manner. According to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the consolidated audit trail is set to be fully operational by the end of May 2024.This 351-page rule does not explicitly mention digital assets, but both cryptocurrency organizations have indicated that the SEC considers many cryptocurrency participants to be exchanges or brokers, and therefore they must report information to the CAT. In a friend-of-the-court brief submitted on Thursday, the organizations stated that the CAT would turn "the blockchain into a massive and fully de-anonymized repository that the government can search at will, without having to show any reason to obtain a search warrant." They noted in the brief, "Due to the nature of blockchain technology, even accessing a seemingly limited identity record can unlock a vast amount of irrelevant financial transactions that the user has conducted in the past, present, and future, all of which will be subject to scrutiny by the federal government and numerous private entities."

Opinion: The US SEC ends multiple reviews and the German government liquidates, which may lead to a recovery in the cryptocurrency market

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, the SEC ended its review of several cryptocurrencies during the week, boosting the prices of some altcoins. On Thursday, Paxos confirmed that the SEC dropped its investigation into its sister stablecoin BUSD, leading to a 6.8% increase in BNB. On Friday, Stacks infrastructure provider Hiro also announced that the SEC concluded its three-year investigation, resulting in a rebound in the market capitalization of STX.Earlier this month, a federal court ruling "reaffirmed" the commodity status of ETH. Although this is a non-binding decision, the court may consider this in future cryptocurrency-related cases, including those involving small-cap tokens. XRP and Cardano (ADA), both of which have been under SEC scrutiny for a long time, recently saw a 19% increase.Bitcoin now also seems to have shed the selling pressure from the German government, which sent its last remaining bitcoins to the trading platform on Friday. Its wallet had held about 50,000 BTC for several months, but its balance has now dropped to zero. In recent weeks, the selling pressure from Bitcoin creditors in Germany, the U.S., and Mt. Gox has been a popular narrative causing market panic. Currently, with the significant decrease in Bitcoin mining difficulty, short-term traders are panic-selling at a loss, and on-chain analysts believe it may be at or near a local bottom.
ChainCatcher Building the Web3 world with innovators