Bitcoin News and Finance: What You Need to Know

At some point in July, there were as many as 350,000 Kenya-based residents who had subscribed and shown interest in receiving Worldcoin’s crypto token. According to a Kenyan legislator, Worldcoin executives are now expected to appear before a parliamentary committee on Sept. 4. Argentina’s Record Sign Ups A Kenyan parliamentary committee tasked with investigating Worldcoin’s activities in the East African nation recently revealed that as many as 350,000 residents had shown interest in the project before its suspension by the government. According to the committee, Kenyan subscribers were accounting for a quarter of Worldcoin’s global total at some point in July. However, as noted in a report published by The Star, the total number of World ID sign-ups from across 34 different countries had topped 2.26 million by August. In addition, the organization suggested an Aug. 31 blog post that demand for the World ID has continued to grow. To prove this, Worldcoin has pointed to the recor...

A U.S. congressman has defended the crypto industry against Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler, who stated that it is rife with noncompliance. The lawmaker’s statement followed a pair of legal cases in which the judges sided with cryptocurrency firms over the securities regulator. ‘Crypto Is Not an Industry Rife With Noncompliance’ U.S. Congressman Tom Emmer (R-MN) has once again slammed the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, for his aggressive stance on the crypto industry. On Saturday, the lawmaker highlighted on social media platform X that the securities regulator already lost legal battles involving Ripple Labs and subsequently Grayscale Investments . He detailed: We will see how pending litigation plays out, but it should be increasingly obvious to policymakers that, despite Gary Gensler’s mass marketing campaign, crypto is not an industry ‘rife with noncompliance.’ In July, District Judge Analisa Torr...

A biography of billionaire investor Elon Musk reveals details about his involvement in the Dogecoin project and an idea to launch a social media platform based on blockchain. The book, which should be available later this month, also mentions a failed attempt by former crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to help Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Elon Musk Considered Creating Blockchain-Based Social Media Platform With Payments Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has been quietly funding the development of Dogecoin, according to a new biography of the owner of Spacex and Tesla which will be published on Sept. 12. The cryptocurrency, which started as a joke a decade ago, owes a great deal of its popularity to Musk who also established himself as a crypto influencer. Elon Musk’s comments about dogecoin (DOGE) have been suspected of moving its market. In a class-action lawsuit involving the meme coin earlier this year, plaintiffs accused him of insider trading and inflating the price of the crypto. ...

The U.S. government has charged the founders of crypto mixing and privacy tool Tornado Cash with money laundering, calling them “criminals.” In other news, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled in favor of crypto asset manager Grayscale against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This and much more just below, in the latest Bitcoin.com News Week in Review. Founders of Crypto Mixer Tornado Cash Accused of Laundering $1 Billion The founders of the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash were charged last week with allegedly helping to launder more than $1 billion in digital currency, including funds taken by North Korean hackers. Read More Court Rules in Favor of Grayscale Against SEC in Bitcoin ETF Conversion Lawsuit A D.C. court has ruled in favor of Grayscale, the largest crypto asset manager, in its lawsuit challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to deny the conversion of GBTC to a spot bitcoin e...

In a recent submission to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bitwise has decided to retract its registration for its Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy exchange-traded fund (ETF). The reasoning behind this action remains unknown, but Bitwise’s chief legal officer, Katherine Dowling, briefly noted that the company has postponed plans to launch the fund. Bitwise Halts Plans for Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF Launch Subsequent to the postponement of seven spot bitcoin ETFs, Bitwise Asset Management has rescinded its Bitcoin and Ether Market Cap Weight Strategy ETF, as stated in an SEC filing on August 31, 2023. The digital asset manager submitted the fund to the SEC on August 3, 2023. It relies on a five-year-diluted market cap among other qualifying factors to ascertain the weight of each cryptocurrency. Owing to the market cap of bitcoin ( BTC ) and ethereum ( ETH ), the combined allocation of these crypto assets within the proposed ETF w...