The biggest regulatory story of the week, if non the year, has been the United States Security and Exchange Commission's lack of opposition to the launch of the showtime-e'er Bitcoin (BTC) substitution-traded funds, which took eight long years to materialize. While the showtime ETFs are tracking CME-traded Bitcoin futures rather than the nugget'due south spot price, the crypto space is already anticipating a pure-Bitcoin ETF as a logical next step. This bar might bear witness to exist immensely difficult to clear, however, as SEC Chair Gary Gensler seems far less convinced of the stringency of investor protections that such products offer.

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Crypto and the national security game

The U.South. Treasury Department revealed last week that the increasing use of digital assets poses a growing threat to the nation's sanctions program. Adversaries can now utilize these alternative financial rail to mitigate the effects of U.Southward.-imposed sanctions within the dollar-denominated realm. But a few days afterwards, a high-ranking Treasury official reiterated the department'southward heightened focus on targeting crypto infrastructure used by bad actors. The official also made it clear that there is an agreement within the department that most crypto transactions serve perfectly legitimate purposes.

Novi anxiety

It took mere hours for a group of Senate Democrats to get extremely nervous nigh Facebook's express pilot of its digital wallet, Novi, run in partnership with Coinbase and Paxos. The exam saw a remittances corridor opening between the U.S. and Guatemala for a small-scale number of users, whereby they could send and receive Pax Dollar (USDP), a dollar-backed stablecoin.

A grouping of 5 senators, including vocal crypto critic Elizabeth Warren and Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brownish, responded with a letter condemning Facebook's "revived effort to launch a cryptocurrency and digital wallet," citing numerous scandals surrounding the company as a justification for why it cannot exist trusted to come up anywhere nigh launching private money.

The thunder from downwardly nether

Big news from Australia captured the crypto crowd's attending every bit an Australian Senate commission tasked with devising measures to brand the nation a leading engineering and financial center rolled out a far-reaching report on the state and prospects of crypto regulation. The study, which was met favorably by the industry, could lay the groundwork for Commonwealth of australia to join the ranks of the world's more than crypto-friendly jurisdictions.