Congress Begins Looking Into Fraud Protections for Cryptocurrency Market

Congress Begins Looking Into Fraud Protections for Cryptocurrency Market

Earlier this year, President Biden called on regulatory agencies to develop a plan for regulating digital assets, giving them 180 days to do so. In the intervening months, crypto prices have cratered, major exchanges have crumbled, and scams are only getting more prevalent. This week, the US House Economic and Consumer Policy subcommittee sent letters to four government agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Trade Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. They also queried the largest crypto exchanges like Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken.

The subcommittee letters ask for details on how each entity works to safeguard consumers against fraud. US regulators mostly have taken a hands-off approach with crypto thus far, fearing over-regulation could stifle innovation, but the time for action may be nigh. The FTC estimates that consumers have been hit with more than a billion dollars in fraud losses over the past 18 months, and the FBI announced this week that criminals had siphoned $1.3 billion in cryptocurrency from decentralized finance (DeFi) in the first quarter of 2022.

The #FBI warns that cyber criminals are increasingly exploiting vulnerabilities in decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to steal investors cryptocurrency. If you think you are the victim of this, contact your local FBI field office or IC3. Learn more: https://t.co/fboL1N17JN pic.twitter.com/VKdbpbmEU1

— FBI (@FBI) August 29, 2022

The letters give agencies and exchanges until September 12th to reply, and they’re expecting a lot of detail. In particular, the subcommittee seeks documents dating back as early as 2009 that show how each has worked to prevent fraud. It’s possible that future legislation will give consumers some protection from the worst scams like “rug pulls,” in which those behind a crypto project transfer away the funds and abandon users with now-worthless digital assets. This is a depressingly common occurrence in the world of NFTs, and consumers currently have little to no recourse. The current lack of regulation also means consumers are “unsecured creditors” in the event of an exchange bankruptcy — for example, Celsius. With no legal guarantees, users may never see their funds returned.

Avoiding government regulation is important to some crypto enthusiasts, but the writing may be on the wall for large exchanges. The anti-fiat crowd can retreat to self-hosted wallets if they want to live in the wild west, and that will give scammers a space in which to operate. The US government is also limited in what it can do to combat crypto scams in other corners of the world. There will be scams as long as crypto has value, but that doesn’t mean the government wants to let them run rampant.

Continue reading

AMD Looking Into Alleged Data Theft
AMD Looking Into Alleged Data Theft

AMD claims it is looking into the incident but for now it is unverified.

With New Graphics Cards Out of the Question, How’s the GTX 680 Looking These Days?
With New Graphics Cards Out of the Question, How’s the GTX 680 Looking These Days?

If you can't buy a new GPU, buying a significantly older one might do the trick, given current cryptocurrency prices.

God of War Might Be the Best-Looking PS4 Game to Date
God of War Might Be the Best-Looking PS4 Game to Date

This new heartfelt interpretation of God of War on the PS4 stands alongside Uncharted 4 and Horizon as the most visually impressive games on both the vanilla model and the PS4 Pro.

Samsung Is Looking to Sell Exynos Mobile Processors to ZTE and Others
Samsung Is Looking to Sell Exynos Mobile Processors to ZTE and Others

Samsung has confirmed that it's talking to multiple firms, including China's ZTE, about selling its Exynos system-on-a-chip (SoC) for use in phones, tablets, and other devices.