Mindboggling isn’t a word often used when discussing proposals issued by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, but the latest one for registered investment advisers and broker-dealers about addressing conflicts of interest when using predictive data analytics (PDA) and PDA-like technology appears to be a notable exception. If adopted as drafted, the SEC’s requirement would […]
Autism Center of Alleged Crypto Inventor Wright’s Fraud Trial
A brilliant autistic cryptocurrency developer or a brilliant con artist? That’s what a federal jury in Miami has to decide about Australian-born Craig Wright, who alleges he is Satoshi Nakamoto, the inventor of the most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin and underlying blockchain technology. Ira Kleiman, the brother of the late Dave Kleiman, sued Wright in 2018 […]
Cryptomarket Rejects New Certification for Trading, Ops Execs
Should Wall Street executives trading and processing digital securities transactions be legally required to pass licensing or mandatory in-house training programs? The answer to the question raised in a comment letter sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in April concerning its December 2020 framework for the custody of digital securities appears to be […]
ADRs: Will Blockchain Create a Better Mousetrap?
Unsponsored American Depositary Receipts could be a lot less expensive and more efficient for investors to own and to receive dividends and other corporate action distributions thanks to a new permission-based blockchain platform designed by RISE Financial Technologies, according to the Boston and London-based blockchain technology firm. RISE Financial predicts its new blockchain-based infrastructure, set to […]
Digital Asset Market 2021: The Year of the Institutional Investor?
This year has proven to be a turning point for institutional investment in the digital asset market as the price of Bitcoin continues to soar, while US state and federal regulators are making some significant announcements on how cryptocurrencies can fit into existing regulations designed for traditional assets. Institutional investors pumped $429 million into cryptofunds […]
Blockchain Attorney Klayman Battles MoFo Over Blocked Partnership
Did Joshua Ashley Klayman, one of the US’ top blockchain attorneys, cost herself a partnership in a prominent global law firm, because she chose to focus on the novel field of blockchain and smart contracts, because was female, or because she got pregnant and took three maternity leaves? Those are among the many questions that […]
Etrading Software; Bloomberg-Kaiko Vie for Crypto ID Authority
If equities, bonds, and OTC derivatives have identification codes why shouldn’t digital assets? That’s the premise Etrading Software and the team of Bloomberg and Kaiko are betting on by recently throwing their hats in the ring to provide ID codes as the new registration authority for digital token identifiers (DTIs) expected to go live sometime […]
Prime Brokerage Enters Crypto Market, Sort Of
First it was digital asset custodians. Now it is aspiring prime brokers who are grabbing the spotlight in the evolution of the cryptoasset market as it tries to become an institutional investor-friendly industry, but with regulations still so murky cryptoasset prime brokers can only be pale reflections of their traditional prime brokerage peers. Although institutional […]
OCC’s DLT for Sec Finance: Broker Reconciliations Gone?
Securities finance operations managers at US broker-dealers clearing their securities loan deals through the Options Clearing Corp. (OCC) could soon reduce if not eliminate time-consuming manual reconciliation work thanks to its new distributed ledger technology-based platform. Once OCC’s new DLT-based securities finance infrastructure is up and running, its 72 broker-dealer users would have real-time access […]
Goodbye NSCC: Hello Paxos for Clearing US Equities?
US clearinghouses, such as the National Securities Clearing Corp. (NSCC), could become either a thing of the past or take a backseat, if custodian Paxos has its way in clearing and settling US securities. The US Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent no-action letter to Paxos allows the firm to serve as a clearinghouse for a […]