Regulation
Crypto payment rails and regulatory clarity
As Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in 1800, “families are continually waxing and waning in America.”
And the same goes for cryptocurrency and the Web3 space in 2024.
That’s because, whether it’s the industry’s market valuation, or the education and acceptance of Web3 technologies, or even the promised land of scalable usability, the journey from distancing cryptocurrencies to the potential embrace of blockchain-based solutions has had its consequences. a fair share of ups and downs in the decade and a half since bitcoin first emerged on the scene in 2009.
But while awareness, acceptance and adoption are all crucial elements in driving the evolution of cryptocurrency, there are two other critical factors that determine its success: its usability and its usefulness, particularly in payment ecosystems.
Underlying these two factors, of course, is the elephant in the room of creating a productive regulatory framework to govern Web3.
This, as the past week brought with it a basket of news demonstrating that the ice around cryptocurrencies’ regulatory and usability issues could potentially melt. That’s why, from legal initiatives to fundraising to payments use cases and beyond, these are the top stories across the Web3 landscape that PYMNTS has been tracking over the past week.
to know more: Making sense of the state of cryptocurrencies in 2024
The digital assets sector is heading to Washington
The crypto community is playing politics to win, with the 440,000-member non-profit group Support cryptocurrencies reportedly forming a political action committee (PAC) to support candidates who are cryptocurrency friendly and blockchain.
The new PAC aims to raise funds from nearly half a million Stand With Crypto members, and comes in a context in which the cryptocurrency sector super PAC they have become one of the top three fundraisers in the 2024 election cycle.
The cryptocurrency industry is hoping that a friendlier and more educated group of lawmakers can finally pass a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies.
And on Friday (May 10), that goal moved one step closer to the finish line, as a bill promises regulatory clarity for digital assets has moved one step closer to a vote in the U.S. House.
THE House Rules Committee said Friday that it will consider the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (FIT21). (H.R. 4763), meaning the bill could come up for a floor vote later in May House Financial Services Committee She said.
FIT21 would outline when a cryptocurrency is a commodity or security and assigns oversight appropriately between the CFTC and the SEC.
But that wasn’t the only legal news on Web3 this week. As it prepares to go public, stablecoin issuer Circle it is also reportedly planning to move its legal base from Ireland to the United States reported Wednesday (May 15).
While on Monday (May 13), US President Biden issued an order block a Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining company from owning land near an American nuclear missile base, citing the mining company’s proximity to the military base as a “national security risk.”
After all, cryptocurrencies have their dangers. North Korea laundered 147.5 million dollars through virtual currency platform Tornado Cash in March after stealing it last year from a cryptocurrency exchange, according to a report on Tuesday (May 14).
Pulse Check on the cryptocurrency market
“It is important to know what cryptocurrencies are not just bitcoin and Doge and NFT”, Sheraz Sherepayment manager at Solana Foundation, he told PYMNTS on Monday. “…Blockchains are truly alternative binaries for payments and financial activities.”
“There are a lot of misconceptions among people in the financial services industry about compliance and regulation, and that they wouldn’t want to touch blockchain with a 10-foot pole,” Shere added. “And I think in the past that may have been true, but now there’s a whole new set of protocol-level controls that provide even finer control than you often have with traditional financial binaries.”
In conversation with PYMNTS, he highlighted the need for both cryptocurrency operators and businesses to focus on real-world use cases, such as cross-border payments, where blockchain solutions offer advantages over traditional systems.
Another blockchain use case being tested is the use of its immutable ledger to record and store digital identities. Humanity Protocol, a startup that aims to verify people’s online identities using scans of their palms, has raised $30 million at a $1 billion valuation, according to a Wednesday relationship.
However, for the everyday retail investor, the recent surge in bitcoin prices has had the phones of crypto wallet recovery companies “ringing off the hook,” according to an article on Thursday. relationshipas investors locked out of their Web3 wallets try to regain access and capture the market surge.
The market surge is resulting in a wave of new coins, as there were nearly 1 million new crypto tokens created in the last month, a number equal to double the total number ever made on Ethereum from 2015 to 2023.
AND PIMNTI he wrote in March about how representatives of fraudulent companies claiming to provide cryptocurrency tracking and promising to recover lost funds are turning to social media and other messaging platforms to directly contact victims to resolve their lost assets.
These recovery system scammers charge an upfront fee and either stop communicating with the victim after receiving an initial deposit or produce an incomplete or inaccurate tracking report and require additional fees to recover the funds. Scammers may claim affiliation with law enforcement or legal services to appear legitimate.
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