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The U.S. government is one of the world’s largest holders of Bitcoin (BTC), storing about 200,000 BTC in hardware wallets. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the U.S. Department of Justice, the Internal Revenue Service and other departments control a number of encrypted hardware wallets. Most of the assets held in government accounts have been confiscated from cybercriminals. According to public records provided by research firm 21.co, the last three seizures brought approximately 215,000 BTC into the U.S. government treasury. Source: Dune In 2020, the Department of Justice confiscated approximately 69,000 BTC that once belonged to the founder of the Silk Road darknet marketplace, Ross Ulbricht. On Oct. 2, 2023, he published a post on the 10th anniversary of his prison sentence. You might also like: 10,000 BTC tied to Silk Road on the move In January 2022, after the arrest of Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife Heather Morgan, who were involved in the ha...

Cryptocurrency mining in Uzbekistan can only be carried out by legal entities with the use of solar power, the local crypto watchdog has reiterated. Cryptocurrency mining in Uzbekistan is overcoming major changes as the country’s major crypto market supervisor has approved a framework for licensing crypto mining operations. Uzbekistan’s National Agency for Perspective Projects (NAPP) issued a decree on licensing cryptocurrency mining operations, limiting such activities exclusively to legal entities . Apart from banning individual miners’ operations, the NAPP has also required firms to only use solar power to mine cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC). However, miners can still use the unified power system of Uzbekistan in certain cases stipulated by the legislation. The document doesn’t mention what cases are meant. Among other requirements, Uzbekistan’s cryptocurrency watchdog demanded companies set up a dedicated room for installing mining equipment and only mine crypto by the reg...

Hong Kong is doing its best to provide an appropriate amount of supervision to the crypto market in order to release the potential of technologies like Web3. The government of Hong Kong remains committed to the development of cryptocurrency infrastructure despite the ongoing industry crisis triggered by the FTX collapse. According to Hong Kong’s financial secretary Paul Chan, the local government and regulators are open to collaboration with crypto and fintech startups in 2023. Speaking at an event hosted by the state-run incubator Cyberport, Chan declared that Hong Kong has become a foundation connecting high quality virtual asset firms, the public broadcasting service Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) reported on Jan. 9. Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po. Source: RTHK The financial secretary said that the Hong Kong government has received lots of requests to set up global headquarters in Hong Kong from crypto-related firms over the past two months. A lot of industry firms have al...

Shortly after the Turkish central bank completed the first CBDC tests, Türkiye announced a blockchain-based digital identity application. Türkiye, formerly known as Turkey, plans to use blockchain technology for online public services logins. e-Devlet, Türkiye’s digital Government portal used to access a wide range of public services , will use a blockchain-based digital identity to verify Turkish citizens during login. Fuat Oktay, vice president of the Republic of Türkiye, announced during the Digital Türkiye 2023 event that citizens will be able to use blockchain-based digital identity to access e-wallet application, Cointelegraph Turkey reported. Oktay called the blockchain-based application a revolution for e-government efforts, adding that online services will be more secure and accessible with blockchain. Users will be able to keep their digital information on their mobile phones. “With the login system that will work within the scope of the e-wallet application, our ci...

An Earthjustice lawyer said the hearings and discovery process would give Kentuckians a good idea what they would be paying for by subsidizing the facilities. The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) has reportedly opened a formal investigation into two proposed contracts that would offer discounted electricity prices to new crypto-mining operations. According to a Dec. 5 statement from environmental law group Earthjustice, the government department would be looking to determine whether subsidizing crypto mining operations will raise electricity costs for Kentucky residents. The two Mining contract s under investigation include one between Kentucky Power and Ebon International LLC, which runs a 250-megawatt Mining facility in Louisa, as well as Mining company Bitki-KY, which operates a 13-megawatt facility in Waverly, Kentucky. The contract proposes to give discounted electricity rates to the Ebon Facility, while the Bitki-KY has already received a $250,000 tax credit from the sta...

The first and the last major attempt to encourage a comprehensive crypto framework was buried in the House of Commons on Nov. 23. In October, Toronto-based Coinsquare became the first crypto trading business to get dealer registration from the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). That means a lot as now Coinsquare investors’ funds enjoy the security of the Canadian Investment Protection Fund in the event of insolvency, while the exchange is required to report its financial standing regularly.  This news reminds us about the peculiarities of Canadian Regulation of crypto . While the country still holds a rather tight process of licensing the virtual asset providers, it outpaces the neighboring United States in its experiments with crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs), pension funds’ investments and central bank digital currency (CBDC) efforts. An era of restricted dealers Coinsquare, which happens to be Canada’s longest-operating crypto asset trading platf...

Nasdaq said that the retail side of the crypto market is quite saturated at the moment with many service providers looking to fulfill retail investors’ needs. Nasdaq, the American stock exchange, has no immediate plans of launching a crypto exchange until there’s better regulatory clarity from policymakers, said Tal Cohen, the company’s executive vice president. In an interview with Bloomberg, Cohen said that the retail side of the crypto market is fairly saturated and there are enough crypto exchanges catering to the needs of retail investors. He added that his firm would continue its focus on crypto custody services that were launched on Sept. 20. Cohen also shed some light on other crypto-related services that the exchange is working on, namely building execution capabilities on the platform to move and transfer assets. The world’s second-largest stock exchange might be hesitant to launch a crypto exchange in the United States, but the firm partnered with Brazil’s leading brokera...