KingData News: Many United States lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have at one point expressed support for legislation banning members from investing in stocks or cryptocurrencies. Beginning on Jan. 3 as the next session of the U.S. Congress opens, Republicans will take control of the House of Representatives with a slim majority following the 2022 Midterms, while Democrats will maintain a majority in the Senate. Kevin McCarthy, a Republican representative in contention to be the next speaker of the House, reportedly said in January 2022 that he would consider an outright ban on lawmakers holding and trading stocks — a measure that presumably could extend to crypto — should his party flip the chamber. It’s unclear at the time of publication whether McCarthy has the votes to assume leadership of the House — a process that will likely begin starting Jan. 3. However, many have pointed to elected officials being allowed to trade and hold certain assets while in office as a potential conflict of interest.

KingData News: The Bank of Korea released a research report, "Major Issues Related to Crypto Asset Regulation and Legislative Direction," stating that stablecoins need stricter regulation than other crypto assets because they have the potential to undermine financial stability. The report argues that stablecoin issuers should be required to have minimum capital and reserve assets to minimize the possibility of digital asset risk transfer to payment and settlement systems, in addition to crypto asset businesses being registered and authorized to operate, and subject to regular external audits.

KingData News: FTX’s spectacular collapse should be a wakeup call for Congress to address risks posed by the largely unregulated crypto industry, Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown said. The Ohio Democrat said he and colleagues are “trying every day” to get new regulations in place and working with federal agencies to “crack down on crypto.”

KingData News: According to Bloomberg, Dubai officials affected by the FTX crash have begun to question crypto-related regulator approvals. This comes after Dubai authorities tried to adopt cryptocurrency-friendly policies to attract crypto firms to the city, sparking a debate about regulation as FTX and Three Arrows Capital burst into flames one after another. As previously announced, the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) has officially revoked the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) license approval for FTX MENA, a subsidiary of FTX UAE.

KingData News: The G20 Bali Leaders' Declaration, published on the U.S. White House website, states that it is "critical to build public awareness of risk, strengthen regulatory outcomes and support a level playing field, while harnessing the benefits of innovation." It also welcomes the continued exploration of how CBDCs can be designed to facilitate cross-border payments while maintaining the stability and integrity of the international monetary and financial system. The statement noted that it welcomed the FSB's proposed approach to establishing a comprehensive international framework for the regulation of crypto-asset activities based on the principle of "same activity, same risk, same regulation" and wanted to ensure that the crypto-asset ecosystem, including the various Stablecoins, was closely monitored to mitigate potential risks to financial stability.

KingData News: The collapse of crypto exchange FTX is proof digital asset markets need more effective oversight, according to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “Further interconnections of the traditional financial system and crypto markets could raise broader financial stability concerns,” Yellen said in a statement on recent market developments. “Going forward, it’s vital we do what is necessary to address these concerning risks and act to protect consumers and promote financial stability.” Regulators should “rigorously” enforce existing rules and Congress should “move quickly” to fill regulatory gaps identified by the Biden Administration, Yellen said.

KingData News: Regulators stressed the need to have a regulatory framework in place during a meeting of South Korea’s National Assembly, given the failure of multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency exchange FTX, CoinDesk Korea reported on Monday. Korea’s government officials are currently drawing up a comprehensive regulatory framework, the Digital Asset Basic Act, expected to be finalized next year. The act will be formed from 13 crypto legislative proposals currently before the National Assembly.

KingData News: Hong Kong fund managers are not at risk from exposure to FTX, according to the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). “SFC has made enquiries with licensed fund managers with exposure to virtual assets, and considered the exposure, if any, to FTX, FTT and related entities to be immaterial,” an SFC spokesman said on Monday. “The fallout of FTX could impact other tokens and other parts of the virtual assets ecology. We will continue to monitor the situation.”

KingData News: The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Korea Financial Services Commission will conduct a comprehensive investigation into the risks associated with 40 cryptocurrency companies' self-issued tokens (platform coins). The aim is to prevent a "second FTX incident" by examining the current status of self-subscribed coins listed on domestic exchanges and each exchange's risk management measures. Tokens issued by companies with issuance platforms such as Paycoin (PCI) and WEMIX (WEMIX) of Danal, a large Korean payment company, are expected to be included in the investigation. The financial authorities believe that a regulatory system for self-issued coins should be established first after this FTX bankruptcy.

KingData News: Dubai is heavily recruiting crypto companies to establish themselves there. Regulations aren’t clear yet, and getting something as basic as a bank account isn’t a smooth process – at least for now. Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), a dedicated regulator for the industry, hasn't yet released a comprehensive regulatory framework that companies can use to create or launch products, but officials have assured local companies that it will come by the end of the year, two people told CoinDesk.

KingData News: The European Commission will "soon" come out with a legislative proposal on a digital euro, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said in a video statement at the "Towards a legislative framework enabling a digital euro for citizens and businesses" conference. “The timely adoption of a legal framework for the digital euro would give all stakeholders the necessary legal certainty to prepare for its possible introduction and send a strong signal of political support,” Lagarde said.

KingData News: According to Yonhap News Agency, the Bank of Korea (BOK) announced that it has successfully completed a two-phase CBDC simulation research project that began in August 2021, including experiments on various policy support and payment services such as CBDC interest payments and redemptions, freezing and collection, and cross-border remittances.

KingData News: Canada's federal government announced it was launching a consultation on "cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and central bank digital currencies," in a fiscal update published Thursday. The Fall Economic Statement, a mini-budget released by Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, is the government's fiscal road map over the coming months. Among provisions on taxes, recovering from COVID-19 and hurricanes, and budget projections was a section on the "digitalization of money," which highlighted cryptocurrencies and digital assets and their use worldwide. Cryptocurrencies are "transforming financial systems" both in Canada and elsewhere, the document said, adding that Canada's financial regulatory frameworks have to "keep pace."

KingData News: The European Union is now expected to adopt a benchmark framework for regulating crypto assets early next year. The European Parliament was to take its final vote on the Markets in Crypto-Assets legislation in an upcoming plenary session in November. But the draft needs to be translated into the 24 official EU languages. But since the text is technical and lengthy, the regulation’s adoption is now anticipated for February 2023, according to a parliament spokesperson.

KingData News: Singapore wants to be a hub for digital assets, just not for trading and speculating in cryptocurrencies, Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said at the Singapore Fintech Festival. The city-state has shown its approval for blockchain technology and has embarked on various projects such as Project Ubin and Project Guardian which test blockchain applications in financial services.

KingData News: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced today that the first industry pilot under MAS’ Project Guardian that explores potential decentralised finance (DeFi) applications in wholesale funding markets has completed its first live trades. More industry pilots have been launched to test the application of asset tokenisation and DeFi across a broader range of use cases in the financial sector. Under the first industry pilot, DBS Bank, JP Morgan and SBI Digital Asset Holdings conducted foreign exchange and government bond transactions against liquidity pools comprising of tokenised Singapore Government Securities Bonds, Japanese Government Bonds, Japanese Yen (JPY) and Singapore Dollar (SGD).

KingData News: The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) released today a report detailing potential uses of a purpose-bound digital Singapore dollar (SGD) and the supporting infrastructure required, marking the successful completion of Phase 1 of Project Orchid. A digital SGD can take different forms: a retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), which is the digital equivalent of today’s notes and coins issued by MAS; or privately issued money, which could include tokenised bank deposits or securely backed stablecoins . While MAS has assessed that the case for a retail CBDC in Singapore [3] is not compelling for now, it continues to actively explore good use cases for digital currencies. Project Orchid aims to build the technical capabilities and competencies necessary for MAS to issue a retail CBDC, should the need arise.

KingData News: Hong Kong is pivoting toward a friendlier regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies with a plan to legalize retail trading. A planned mandatory licensing program for crypto platforms set to be enforced in March next year will allow retail trading, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public.

KingData News: Singapore proposed to ban retail investors from borrowing to fund cryptocurrency purchases, part of a slew of suggestions to further tighten the city-state’s regulatory regime for digital assets. Other potential steps in a Monetary Authority of Singapore consultation paper include stopping companies from using tokens deposited by retail investors for lending or staking to generate yields. Staking is the process of earning rewards by deploying coins for crypto applications.

KingData News: The U.S. government should use its enforcement authorities to crack down on crypto scams and operational failures, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said, reiterating her agency’s call for “beefed up” enforcement on digital assets. “Our report found that there are too many instances of fraud and scams and operational failures,” Yellen said. “There are some existing enforcement authorities and we would like to see those beefed up, and greater enforcement in this area.” Yellen spoke broadly about risks to the economy and said cryptocurrencies do not yet pose a significant risk to financial stability. The crypto market is “not yet big enough or connected enough,” but that could change as the technology matures, Yellen noted.

KingData News: According to a report cited by News1, the Korea Financial Commission believes that tokens and stablecoins listed on a single exchange are likely to be laundered, and therefore to prevent money laundering, the proportion of tokens and stablecoins listed on a single exchange on a virtual asset exchange should be investigated, and the greater the proportion, the higher the risk of money laundering. The KFTC believes that it is necessary to monitor the size and trend of virtual assets held by customers who deposit high amounts of virtual assets by multiplying the amount of virtual assets held by each customer by the closing price of the virtual assets at the end of the previous quarter, categorized as "100 million to 300 million won" (approximately 500,000 to 1.5 million RMB), "300 million to 500 million won", and "500 million won or more".

KingData News: The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), South Africa’s financial regulator, published a notice on Oct. 19 indicating that the country’s 2002 Financial Advisory and Financial Intermediary Services Act (FAIS) has been updated to include a definition of crypto assets. A South African draft declaration on crypto assets was published in November 2020. In June 2021, a national working group created a roadmap for a regulatory framework. In February 2022, South Africa’s National Treasury confirmed the intention of declaring cryptocurrency a financial product and of enhancing the monitoring and compliance of transactions with regard to crypto.

KingData News: AA new draft of the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA), which the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would use to regulate the industry, has been uploaded to GitHub, and many crypto stakeholders are relieved. New language added to the bill would specifically exclude software developers from being counted as digital commodity brokers. Being classified as a broker would entail specific tax reporting requirements, which software developers would not be able to do without centralized management of their platforms. Previous bills have defined broker broadly to include node operators and wallet manufacturers, which this bill specifically excludes. The draft also includes new language that would order the CFTC to provide a report on the DeFi market size and protocols within 180 days of the enactment of the bill. It would also order the CFTC to liaise with foreign regulators to ensure that U.S. rules harmonize with international regulations.

KingData News: Rio de Janeiro will allow its residents to pay property taxes in digital assets starting in 2023, a decree published this week has revealed. While the residents will make the payments in digital assets, the city government will only receive the funds in fiat. It will rely on its partner VASPs to convert digital assets with no additional costs to the taxpayers. Mayor Paes has been a longtime digital asset supporter. In January, he committed to allocate 1% of the city’s treasury reserves to digital assets.

KingData News: As per a report, Mairead McGuinness, the EU financial services chief has issued a warning over the digital assets citing a threat to financial stability. She mentioned that any crypto regulations inflicted on the market would need to be put in the global order. The report suggests that the Irish commissioner met US politicians on Capitol Hill. She had a brief conversation about how to regulate the crypto industry. The commissioner sensed that US policymakers are in the same line with the EU. However, European policymakers are more concerned regarding the crypto regulations and market.

KingData News: The Japanese government passed six legal amendments, including the Foreign Exchange Law, at the Cabinet meeting to combat money laundering activities, including the requirement to confirm user names and other information and notify operators among operators conducting crypto asset trading business. The final law amendments approved by the Cabinet will be submitted to the Diet session of Japan for consideration, aiming to be passed in the current Diet.

KingData News: Securities regulators should have the power to demand foreign crypto sites be taken down, the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) said in a Wednesday report. The proposals from the standard-setter are the latest in a series of crypto crackdowns based on worries over money laundering, tax evasion, financial stability, and the rise in financial advice dished out by novel sources like social media influencers. Apps use techniques taken from mobile games to trick people into buying inappropriate financial products, and financial influencers, also known as finfluencers, offer investment advice without the correct license, IOSCO also warned.

KingData News: The five biggest crypto exchanges in Korea have signed a “crypto crime-fighting” MOU deal with the nation’s police force – and will work with officers fighting crypto-powered money launderers and crypto scam artists. According to Fn News, the exchanges – the market-leading Upbit and Bithumb, as well as Korbit, Coinone, and Gopax – have agreed to work with police investigations into “crimes related to virtual assets” and “prevent damage” to investors.

KingData News: “This is a big step for us," said Behnam before the Institute of International Finance on Thursday. "But I've made the case, and the argument is, unlike traditional commodity markets, which are largely institutional and wholesale markets, we've seen commodity digital markets emerge that are retail oriented and speculative."

KingData News: No stablecoin currently meets the standards set for the digital asset category by central bankers of the world’s largest economies, and many stablecoins “do not have credible mechanisms to support their promise of price stability," a report issued by the Financial Stability Board concluded today. The FSB also cast doubt on how most stablecoins would be able to maintain their pricing under market stress, concluding that, “most stablecoins enable arbitrage activities of market participants and to a considerable extent rely on them,” and that it’s unclear how that would hold up under adverse financial conditions, “raising questions about the effectiveness of the stabilization mechanisms in supporting a stable price at all times.”

KingData News: Medina is calling for a 28% capital gains tax on earnings made from cryptoassets held less than one year, according to a draft 2023 budget introduced to Portugal’s parliament Monday. It is the same rate that traditional investment vehicles are currently taxed in the country. Income made from cryptoassets held for one year or more will continue to be tax-free, the proposal adds. Portugal has long exempted individuals from paying capital gains tax on crypto earnings.

KingData News: The highly-anticipated Markets in Crypto-Assets legislation passed the European Parliament on Monday, after a two-year long debate and drafting process. The final vote tallied up to 28 in favor and 1 against. The entire European Parliament will vote on final approval of the legislation later in October. Alongside MiCA, the Members of the European Parliament are also voting on the Transfer of Funds Regulation, an anti-money laundering bill that obliges transfers made in crypto to include data on the payer and payee. The measure is expected to pass as well.