ePayments Loses Battle with UK Regulator, Japanese Police Will Be Able to Seize Crypto + More News
Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
Business news
- The British crypto and peer-to-peer digital pay firm ePayments has announced that it will close shop just eight months after it claimed it was ready to “re-open for business.” At the end of December last year, the company wrote that it could not “wait to start serving” its clients again after a “huge investment from our shareholders.” The company has been locked in a struggle with the British financial regulatory Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for the past three years. The FCA claimed that ePayments’ “financial crime controls” were lacking. In an official announcement, ePayments announced that it could “no longer sustain the business to build back to what the FCA requires and a ‘business as usual’ state.” Some claimed on social media that they still had funds locked up in the firm’s platform.
Are you kidding me??? So when at this point you’re going to unblock my account and return my money back?!?!?!
— Ju (@JuDesignPRAdv) September 12, 2022
Regulation news
- The UAE’s Abu Dhabi Global Market free economic zone (ADGM)’s regulator – the Financial Services Regulatory Authority – has outlined its regulatory policy for crypto-related businesses who are planning to launch crypto-related services in the zone. The regulator published a set of “Guiding Principles” that underline the ADGM’s commitment to comply with global anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism protocols. The body also remarked that it will ensure that firms in the zone abide by international sanctions.
CBDCs news
- The Linux Foundation-founded Hyperledger Foundation – a collective of blockchain development initiatives – says that the central banks of France and Nigeria have become its newest members. In an official announcement, the foundation claimed that the Banque de France and the Central Bank of Nigeria had joined its fold. The French central bank has previously worked with both Hyperledger and IBM (a major Hyperledger backer) on its own trials for a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC).
Projects of #CBDCs replacing #Fiat currencies are going strong 👇
— Rob Kientz | Gold Silver Pros (@goldsilver_pros) September 7, 2022
105 countries, representing over 95 percent of global #GDP, are exploring a #CBDC.
🔸 11 Launched
🔸 14 Pilot mode
🔸 26 In development
🔸 47 Research phase
🔸 10 Inactive
🔸 2 Canceled pic.twitter.com/JZmjbNV1k3
Law enforcement news
- Japanese police are set to be given new powers to seize cryptoassets – after the policy-making Legislative Council green-lighted proposals from the Ministry of Justice. The justice minister, Yasuhiro Harashi, wants to revise the existing Act on Punishment of Organized Crime to allow officers and bailiffs to confiscate cryptoassets “obtained as criminal proceeds,” Nikkei reported. Officers will also have the power to seize funds they think have been used in money laundering, provided the country’s parliament rubber-stamps the proposals later this year.
- Taiwanese police say they have busted a lucrative crypto fraud group, the Epoch Times reported. Officers claimed that the ringleader was a 27-year-old, who has now been placed under custody – and stated that they had made a total of 14 arrests. The gang, police claimed, made use of chat apps like Line, where they claimed to be “investment teachers” who would invest their clients’ funds in crypto for a small fee. However, they appear to have “guided” their “clients” to bogus exchanges that the latter then could not withdraw funds from. Bags of narcotics, bundles of cash, and “six imported luxury cars” were seized from the suspects.
Adoption news
- The Augusto Motta University Centre (UNISUAM), a college based in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, will launch a post-graduate crypto course – with modules in blockchain, Web3, and the metaverse, Diario do Rio reported. The six-month-long course is officially recognized by the Ministry of Education and UNISUAM was quoted as claiming that the “practical” course would help professionals prepare for a career in the crypto and blockchain sectors.
