ChainCatcher news, a Texas court has ordered the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to repeal a controversial rule that broadly redefined the term "Dealer," a move that has impacted both cryptocurrency-focused financial firms and traditional financial companies.Judge Reed O'Connor found that the rule was passed in February by a 3 to 2 vote, exceeding the statutory authority of the SEC. Traditionally, a dealer refers to an entity that buys and sells securities for itself rather than for others. The SEC expanded the definition in an attempt to include any entity capable of providing market liquidity, particularly in the U.S. Treasury market.In a footnote of the original proposal draft, it was explicitly stated that those "engaged in the trading of crypto securities" must comply with securities laws, register with the SEC, and join industry-supported self-regulatory organizations. Initially, participants in the crypto industry objected to the rule. The expanded interpretation effectively eliminated the distinction between "trader" and "dealer" in traditional understanding.The Texas Blockchain Association and the Crypto Freedom Alliance filed a lawsuit against the securities regulator in April (the month the rule officially took effect), claiming that the rule's intervention in the crypto space was excessive and conflicted with existing laws regulating securities dealers, which have been in place for 90 years.

ChainCatcher News, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Cumberland DRW, claiming it operates as an unregistered securities dealer. According to the SEC's indictment information, Cumberland has been trading crypto assets as securities for its own accounts as an unregistered dealer since March 2018.In response, Cumberland DRW issued a statement on the X platform saying, "The SEC believes that some of our transactions involving certain crypto assets are securities transactions. We took this step in 2019 by acquiring a registered broker-dealer. It was only then that we were informed that we could only trade BTC or ETH (both commodities, not under SEC jurisdiction) through our broker-dealer."Cumberland DRW stated that the SEC's action will not change its business operations or the assets it provides liquidity for. The court's allegations against DRW are "merely based on a 'flat Earth' conviction." This time, the SEC's approach seems to be a game of "Catch-22," where the ability to "come in and register" is just a mirage. We are ready to defend ourselves again.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) of Ireland has stated that it has been unable to access the Bitcoin seized from drug dealer Clifton Collins since 2020. These Bitcoins are currently worth approximately $378 million and are stored in 12 wallets. Collins claims that the file containing the wallet seed phrases was lost during a burglary. He began investing in Bitcoin in 2011 when the price ranged from $0.30 to $29.The CAB seized these Bitcoins in 2020, when they were valued at around $56 million. The Irish High Court ruled that these assets were derived from criminal activity and ordered their transfer to the CAB. However, due to the inability to access the wallets, these Bitcoins have remained frozen for the past four years. During this time, the price of Bitcoin has risen from about $9,000 to over $62,000, significantly increasing the value of this seized Bitcoin.

ChainCatcher news, according to official sources, tZERO Group Inc. announced that tZERO digital asset securities have received approval from both the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), becoming a specialized broker-dealer for the custody of new types of digital asset securities.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Crypto Basic, precious metals dealer Suisse Gold has announced that it now accepts XRPL native tokens as a payment option. This development allows buyers to use XRP to purchase gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and rhodium. This integration will also enable Suisse Gold to display the pricing of its precious metals in XRP. According to the announcement, the pricing is real-time and fluctuates with the changes in the market value of gold and XRP.XRP has joined the exclusive list of cryptocurrencies accepted by Suisse Gold for transaction settlements. This precious metals dealer also accepts payments in Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

ChainCatcher news, the Chester Cyber Crime Unit in the UK successfully "seized" £15,000 worth of Monero from a convicted drug dealer.This marks the first time in the UK that Monero cryptocurrency has been converted into cash, demonstrating the crackdown on criminal activities involving privacy coins. The dealer was sentenced to 28 months in prison for selling deadly weight loss drugs on the dark web and has now been forced to hand over £23,000 in assets, or face an additional 8 months in prison.

ChainCatcher news, according to Fortune, Arbelos has completed a $28 million financing round, led by Dragonfly, with participation from FalcolnX, Circle, Paxos, Polygon, and Deribit. Arbelos Markets will primarily focus on derivatives and over-the-counter trading for institutional participants, providing trading liquidity for companies such as hedge funds and venture capital firms, acting as a counterparty for popular products like options and futures. This financing round concluded in mid-2023.It is reported that the two co-founders, Lim and Tang, both started their careers in traditional finance before transitioning to cryptocurrency. Lim served as the Vice President of Trading at Circle and was responsible for trading strategies at Galaxy Digital, the commercial bank founded by Mike Novogratz, before becoming the Head of Derivatives at Genesis Global Trading, a subsidiary of Barry Silbert's crypto empire. Since 2017, Tang has been the Chief Investment Officer and Managing Partner at LedgerPrime, a cryptocurrency hedge fund acquired by FTX.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the Texas Blockchain Association and the Cryptocurrency Freedom Alliance have filed a lawsuit, claiming that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's expansion of the definition of "dealer" to encompass digital asset activities is excessive. The lawsuit claims that the expanded definition of dealer will cover those who are merely trading digital assets. The lawsuit states that the SEC did not consider the feedback received during the public comment period for the rule and did not conduct the "statutorily required economic analysis." The lawsuit requests the court to declare the rule "arbitrary, capricious, or otherwise not in accordance with law" under the Administrative Procedure Act and to prevent the SEC from enforcing the rule.Previously, the SEC approved the expanded definition of "dealer" in February by a vote of 3 to 2, describing it as "a functional analysis based on the individual’s securities trading activities rather than the type of securities being traded."

ChainCatcher news, according to CNBC, Coinbase has registered as a restricted dealer under the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) in Ontario, Canada, allowing the company to further expand into overseas markets amid regulatory pressure in the U.S. domestic market.Last year, Canada introduced new guidelines for cryptocurrency exchanges, limiting the amount certain investors can invest in cryptocurrencies and imposing mandatory registration for cryptocurrency companies.It is reported that Coinbase is the first international cryptocurrency trading platform to accept restricted dealer registration in Canada.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) passed new rules yesterday redefining "dealers" and "government securities dealers." SEC Commissioner Hester Pierce noted that she could not support the final rules because the definition of dealers "does not align with the legal framework in which it operates, will distort market behavior, reduce market quality, and turn dealers (many of whom are customers) into dealers."Many DeFi supporters and cryptocurrency experts shared their concerns about the new rules on social media. Delphi Labs' General Counsel Gabriel Shapiro recounted Pierce's interactions with SEC staff regarding dealer registration requirements, explaining how the new rules would affect liquidity providers. Consensys Senior Counsel and Global Head of Regulatory Affairs Bill Hughes stated that the new rules make it increasingly important to clearly define which crypto assets fall under U.S. law as securities.He added that the new rules regarding cryptocurrencies will be challenged in federal court, as these rules have a significant impact on the securities market. "You can anticipate that many sectors will seek judicial review. And the SEC's recent track record in such cases has been poor. Shockingly, the SEC seems completely uninterested in providing this clarity. The public's only hope in the short term remains that Congress will take action."

ChainCatcher news, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart posted on social media that VanEck has submitted the latest revised S-1 filing for its Bitcoin spot ETF. With this update, VanEck's application for the Bitcoin spot ETF has officially transitioned to cash creation, but an authorized participant has not yet been formally named.James Seyffart added that this does not mean they will not be approved. Before issuance, each issuer must submit a valid prospectus. This essentially means they can go live; it just theoretically requires specifying the AP (as well as fees and other details) within it.

ChainCatcher news, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas posted on social media that WisdomTree has submitted the latest revised S-1 filing for its Bitcoin spot ETF, designating Jane Street Capital as the authorized participant for its Bitcoin spot ETF.

ChainCatcher news, Bloomberg ETF analyst James Seyffart posted on social media that Invesco US and Galaxy Digital have submitted the latest revised S-1 filing for their Bitcoin spot ETF, designating JP Morgan Securities and Virtu Americas as the authorized participants for their Bitcoin spot ETF.It is reported that the ETF will not charge a sponsor fee for the first 6 months after its launch, while the sponsor fee set for the ETF itself is 0.59%.

ChainCatcher message, on-chain analyst @ai_9684xtpa's tracking data shows that METIS has increased by 47% in the past 24 hours. Eleven new addresses with highly similar operational behaviors hold 275,000 METIS (accounting for 6% of the token's circulation), worth 15.5 million USD, suspected to be addresses of market makers/whales, characterized by: tokens being transferred out from Coinbase; total transfer amounts around 20,000-30,000; transfer times concentrated in February and December, corresponding to two peaks in METIS's price.

ChainCatcher news, according to Yangtze Evening News, the police in Qingdao, Shandong Province, have jointly cracked a major underground bank case involving an amount as high as 15.8 billion yuan, which spans 17 provinces and municipalities across the country, and have arrested brokers involved in the illegal buying and selling of virtual currencies.In November 2022, the Qingdao police discovered that the accounts of a person named Jin and others were extremely abnormal, with over a thousand accounts showing an average daily flow of more than 3 million yuan and a total transaction amount exceeding 2 billion yuan. Additionally, large amounts of funds exhibited abnormal characteristics such as high-frequency operations and rapid in-and-out transactions around the clock.Li is an ordinary employee of a textile company in a county-level city, but the fund flow of the third-party bank cards associated with her name and controlled by her reached over 5 billion yuan, which is clearly inconsistent with her identity. Therefore, we conducted an investigation focusing on her trading counterpart and found that Li's other identity was actually a broker specializing in the illegal buying and selling of virtual currencies. Li helped Jin convert a large amount of funds into Tether and other virtual currencies through an overseas virtual currency trading platform. After obtaining conclusive evidence, the case handlers carried out a net-seizing operation. The Qingdao police seized virtual currencies such as Tether and Litecoin worth approximately 2 million yuan on-site. The case has now been transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution.

ChainCatcher News, cryptocurrency custody company BitGo has announced the launch of a wealth management platform that will allow registered investment advisors (RIA) and broker-dealers to access digital assets with the highest compliance and security directly and easily.It is reported that the wealth management platform integrates with traditional portfolio management systems such as Orion, InvestCloud, and Black Diamond, allowing users to customize layouts, add custom indices, rebalance portfolios, and automate reporting to ensure the smooth integration of digital assets into any portfolio. (Source link)