The US Treasury Department is close to releasing a risk assessment analysing criminal use of decentralised finance (DeFi), Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, has said.
“Illicit actors are constantly looking for effective ways to hide criminal activity and the laundering of their proceeds. This is a threat to DeFi services or other elements of the virtual asset ecosystem,” Rosenberg said at a Monday banking event in Sydney, Australia.
She said her team is “actively working on” an assessment that will be released soon.
She added that it’s because of the “astounding” growth in digital assets, that the industry often “treats regulations and financial crimes compliance as an afterthought.”
She said the potential harms from criminal use of virtual assets has been illustrated by groups affiliated with North Korea that have “conducted ransomware attacks, stolen hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of virtual assets, and laundered their ill-gotten funds through mixers and other virtual asset service providers to fund North Korea’s illegal nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.”
Binance Stops Withdrawals, Deposits For UK Customers
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, has temporarily stopped its pound deposits and withdrawals, the company spokesperson said on Tuesday.
This news comes a month after the crypto exchange halted dollar transfers. The sterling transfers stopped Monday earlier this week.
A spokesperson said that Paysafe, the exchange’s partner for sterling transfers, would halt its services from May 22, impacting all Binance customers.
“Binance will ensure that affected users are still able to access their GBP balances,” the spokesperson said, adding that the “the change affects less than 1 percent of Binance users.”
Coinbase Allows Crypto Customers In Singapore To Transfer Through Local Banks
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will allows its Singapore customers to move funds to and from accounts via local banks in an attempt to smoothen the path to investment in digital assets at a time of financial instability and crypto banking.
Transfers in Singapore dollars are facilitated by a traditional bank, Standard Chartered, and costless, the company said in a statement.
Previously, users could only purchase crypto via a Visa or Mastercard debit or credit card, or transfer crypto in and out of their Coinbase account.
Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s country director for Singapore, told Reuters in an interview the move was part of the company’s international expansion strategy.
Rivals Crypto.com and Gemini already offer a similar service.
Last year, Coinbase received an in-principal approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to offer payment services in the city-state, and it is looking to ramp up its Singapore retail offerings, Ahmed said.
