Once again, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) became the week’s headliner. Its intention to freeze the entirety of Binance.US’s assets got a reality check from U.S. district court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who advised the regulator and the crypto exchange to negotiate a deal bilaterally. The resulting agreement outlines measures for Binance.US to prevent any access by Binance officials to private keys of wallets, hardware wallets, or root access to Binance.US’s Amazon Web Services tools. Additionally, the U.S.-based crypto trading platform will disclose comprehensive information on business expenses, including estimated costs, in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, documents finally released publicly last week confirm that back in 2018, SEC employees were concerned that the speech of one of the regulator’s top executives, Bill Hinman, might undermine the idea that Ether is security. Sticking with 2018, a newly resurfaced video of the now SEC Chair Gary Gensler is also doing a massive disservice to him. In a 2018 speech from an event hosted by Bloomberg for institutional investors, Gensler confidently states: “Over 70% of the crypto market is Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash. Why did I name those four? They’re not securities.”
Gensler’s life will surely not be easy in the near future, as Representative Warren Davidson has introduced the SEC Stabilization Act to the U.S. House of Representatives. One of the bill’s main provisions is to fire “a tyrannical Chairman” — a position that Gensler currently occupies. However, as history shows, firing the SEC’s chair might not be easy for Congress.
Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), which serves as the region’s central bank and regulator, has reportedly pressured major banks, including HSBC and Standard Chartered, to accept crypto exchanges as clients. The HKMA issued a circular to banking institutions urging them to pay attention to new market developments and encouraging them to adopt a more ambitious approach to new sectors, such as the crypto market. In the document, the HKMA specifically required the institutions to help crypto firms — which it calls “virtual asset service providers” — gain access to banking services.
The European Parliament has passed the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which is a sweeping legislative framework for governance and oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the European Union. Once implemented, the act would prohibit certain types of artificial intelligence services and products, while limiting or restricting others. Among the technologies to be outright banned are biometric surveillance, social scoring systems, predictive policing, so-called “emotion recognition” and untargeted facial recognition systems. Generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, would be allowed to operate under the condition that their outputs be clearly labeled as AI-generated.
Source: Cointelegraph
