CFA Report Pegs US Crypto Fraud Losses at $80.7B

Tether invested $20 million in Argentine neobank Ualá, part of a $197 million funding round. Ualá offers financial services to over 11 million customers in Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia. Tether's investments in the South American region include Belo and Mercado Bitcoin.

The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution stating that Sam Bankman-Fried should not receive clemency over the collapse of crypto exchange FTX. The nonbinding resolution does not limit presidential power to grant clemency; U.S. President Donald Trump has already pardoned several crypto figures including former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

White House officials are expected to meet with U.S. senators to address the legislation's restriction on senior government officials' personal business interests in the crypto sector. Negotiators have yet to reach a compromise as the Senate calendar winds down, with the Senate set to depart for summer recess soon.

Japan has reclassified cryptocurrencies as financial instruments, paving the way for separate taxation and potential crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The new legislation, amending the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act and the Payment Services Act, is set to take effect in 2027, introducing stricter regulations and penalties for unregistered operators.

EthSystems, a new for-profit company, has emerged from the Ethereum Foundation's Institutional Privacy Task Force to develop privacy and compliance technology for banks and asset managers transacting on Ethereum. The company's focus is on providing confidential systems for institutional Ethereum use, addressing the need for modular privacy tools in the industry.

A joint roadmap for aligning regulations on stablecoins, tokenized assets, and digital money has been laid out by the U.S. and UK. The recommendations from the Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future aim to facilitate blockchain-based finance movement across the Atlantic.

The UK's HMRC has unveiled a new tax treatment for Individuals and trustees involved in cryptoasset loans and liquidity pools that defers Capital Gains Tax until an economic disposal of the cryptoasset. This measure aims to align tax treatment with the economics of these arrangements.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has chosen 36 banks and payment firms to participate in a digital euro pilot program, set to begin in the second half of next year. The pilot will test various aspects of the digital euro, including online and offline transfers, in-store payments, and e-commerce transactions.

The U.S. government transferred $288 million in seized Bitcoin and Ethereum to Coinbase Prime, sparking speculation about a potential sell-off—though the move could simply signal the "consolidation and custody of seized assets." The Bitcoin came from criminal cases involving Ryan Farace and BTC-e, while the Ethereum was linked to a money-laundering case with Oracle employee Brian Krewson.

Bolivia is considering including Tether's USDT stablecoin as a payment method as its economy stabilizes. The country, on the FATF grey list, is carefully evaluating crypto assets for regulation.