Forbes: SEC Investigating Every U.S. Crypto Exchange

Every U.S. Crypto Exchange (And Binance) Is Being Investigated By The SEC, Says Senator Lummis Staffer

Widely circulated reports that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating $20 billion crypto exchange Coinbase are just the tip of the iceberg, according to a staffer from U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis’ (R-Wy) office. The staffer says every U.S. crypto exchange—and the largest crypto exchange in the world, Binance—are in various stages of being investigated. There are more than 40 U.S. cryptocurrency exchanges, according to crypto data site, CoinGecko. The SEC has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Coming in the wake of a number of SEC actions asserting the regulator’s domain over the crypto industry, and an equally strong response by the U.S Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) pushing back against what it characterizes as “regulation through enforcement,” the staffer says the SEC urgently wants to resolve its dispute with the CFTC over crypto jurisdiction. If the matter isn’t resolved internally, he says legislators would have to get involved, and that Congress is likely to side with the CFTC.

BlackRock Teams Up With Coinbase in Crypto Market Expansion

BlackRock Inc. is partnering with Coinbase Global Inc. to make it easier for institutional investors to manage and trade Bitcoin, taking the world’s largest asset manager into a cryptocurrency market hammered by plunging prices and government investigations.

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Top BlackRock clients will be able to use its Aladdin investment-management system to oversee their exposure to Bitcoin along with other portfolio assets such as stocks and bonds, and to facilitate financing and trading on Coinbase’s exchange, according to a statement Thursday. The focus of the partnership with Coinbase, the biggest US crypto-trading platform, “will initially be on Bitcoin,” BlackRock said.

Twitter rejects Elon Musk’s claims that he was hoodwinked

Twitter on Thursday dismissed Elon Musk’s claims in a Delaware court filing that he was hoodwinked into signing the deal to buy the social media company, saying that it was “implausible and contrary to fact.”

Musk made the claims in a countersuit that he filed under seal last Friday, which was made public on Thursday.

“According to Musk, he — the billionaire founder of multiple companies, advised by Wall Street bankers and lawyers — was hoodwinked by Twitter into signing a $44 billion merger agreement. That story is as implausible and contrary to fact as it sounds,” the filing released by Twitter on Thursday said.

Michael Saylor Lost Big in the Dot-Com Bubble and Bitcoin’s Crash. Now He Aims to Rebound Again

Saylor and MicroStrategy then spent two decades mostly under Wall Street’s radar. Not that he was suffering. MicroStrategy kept plugging away, developing software for businesses. Saylor lived in a Miami Beach, Fla., mansion that looks like a Spanish colonial palace. A recent visit by a CoinDesk reporter revealed painted cherubs on the foyer ceiling, gold paneling and crimson-red wall paper in the dining room, a stage beyond the office library stocked with guitars, drums and whatever else a band might need, and a portrait of Saylor styled like an old English sailor – with laser eyes. A yacht was floating out back, where a crew lived full-time so Saylor could travel whenever he wanted.

What brought Saylor back to center stage was bitcoin. His fear of inflation drove him in 2020 to start investing MicroStrategy’s cash in the original cryptocurrency. The company’s cash flows started getting routed to bitcoin. He lined Wall Street bankers’ pockets by selling debt to raise money to buy bitcoin. In the process, he audaciously turned his sleepy software company into a bitcoin vault. In all, MicroStrategy has spent about $4 billion on digital assets. MicroStrategy’s stock became a proxy for holding bitcoin. The stock price moves up and down in lockstep with bitcoin’s movements.

Meet the accountants who may become the new power brokers of taxes.

Here’s where the accounting officials come in. Nearly 50 years ago, the Securities and Exchange Commission gave responsibility for writing and updating its “generally accepted accounting principles,” which determine how quarterly and annual profits are calculated, to the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a private organization funded by corporations and overseen by a nonprofit group, the Financial Accounting Foundation.

FASB — pronounced “fazbie” — is run by a seven-member board of accountants and professional investors. Under the new tax regime, one way to tweak corporate America’s tax bill would be to get FASB to rewrite how companies calculate their profits, which is squishier than you might think.

Crypto Guidance Banks Rely on Targeted by Democrat Elizabeth Warren

Warren wants the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to pull a series of Trump-era interpretations that paved the way for banks to offer services like crypto custody for clients. The letter, a draft copy of which was reviewed by Bloomberg News, calls on the OCC to work with the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to replace them with an approach “that adequately protects consumers and the safety and soundness of the banking system.”