The UK government is to publish draft crypto regulation rules today.
The proposals from HM Treasury are set to ensure the return of assets to customers in the event of the bankruptcy of a cryptocurrency exchange.
Further specific rules will be applied to ‘financial intermediaries and custodians’.
The draft rules, set for a three-month public consultation, will also target misleading cryptoasset promotions, enhance data-reporting requirements and seek to prevent ‘pump and dump’ where an individual inflates the value of a cryptoasset then sells it.
The Treasury said the rules will “regulate a broad suite of cryptoasset activities, consistent with its approach to traditional finance”.
There have been widespread calls for regulation following the high-profile collapses of exchange FTX, the Terra blockchain and its Luna and UST cryptocurrencies, and lender Celsius Networks.
Once ministers have considered views garnered from the public consultation – set to end on April 30th – the Financial Conduct Authority will draw up the regulations.
Cryptocurrency shorts
The Premier League has agreed a four-year NFT deal with Paris-based sports fantasy game platform Sorare. It gives Sorare the licence to sell digital trading cards from all 20 Premier League clubs.
‘Twitter killer’ Damus has been approved in Apple’s App Store. Built on decentralised network Nostr, it bills itself as ‘the social network you control’ and includes built-in payments through the Bitcoin Lightning network.
My Big Coin founder Randall Crater has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison for defrauding investors and customers out of millions of dollars with his now-defunct virtual payments business.
Venom Ventures has invested $5 million into Everscale, a blockchain which seeks to address the problem of scalability on Web3. It says its platform’s low-cost, fast and easily accessible suite of solutions allows developers to build a variety of Web3 apps.
Decentralised BioTech collective VitaDAO – which is focused on longevity research – has raised $4.1m in a strategic funding round joined by Pfizer Ventures, Shine Capital, L1 Digital, Beaker DAO and Spaceship DAO.
Immutable Passport has been launched as a Web3 onboarding platform allowing users to gain access to blockchain games and marketplaces through passwordless sign-on.
Oh Baby Games has launched with $6m seed funding led by Girl Capital and Synergis Capital. Its first title is What the Kart, a racing game featuring characters from high-profile crypto personalities and streamers.
Crypto prices
The overall market cap of the 22,400 coins is at $1.05 trillion at the time of writing (7am UK), a 0.7% increase in the last 24 hours.
For round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments, click here.
For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.