Major cryptocurrencies traded in a mixed manner on Monday evening, as there is an ongoing concern about the future of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance.

CryptocurrencyGains +/-Price (Recorded 9:30 p.m. EST)Bitcoin BTC/USD+0.86%$37,588Ethereum ETH/USD+1.31%$2,030Dogecoin DOGE/USD-2.20%$0.078

What Happened: According to Bloomberg, Binance may resolve multiple criminal charges in the U.S. by paying $4 billion by the end of the month. Notably, this settlement is expected to enable the exchange to continue its operations.

In other news, The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken legal action against Kraken, an alleged case of commingling customer funds and failure to…

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Average daily transaction fees on Bitcoin (BTC)  have flipped with Ethereum following a frenzy of Ordinals-related activity on the Bitcoin network. 

On Nov. 20, the average daily transaction fee for Bitcoin stood at $10.34, while Ethereum’s transaction fees came to an average of $8.43, according to BitInfoChart data.

Bitcoin’s average daily trading fee notched a new six-month high on Nov.16, reaching a peak of $18.67, while Ethereum fees reached $7.90.

Bitcoin’s average daily fees have surged above Ethereum’s in the last five days. Source: BitInfoCharts

The sudden uptick in Bitcoin transaction fees stems from a renewed market appetite for assets inscribed with the Ordinals…

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The Blockchain Association has thrown fresh support behind six plaintiffs suing the United States Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over its sanctions on the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.

In a Nov. 20 amicus curiae brief to a U.S. appellate court, the crypto advocacy group argued OFAC’s decision to sanction the privacy protocol was not only unlawful but exceeded its statutory authority and was both “arbitrary and capricious” — contrary to the U.S. Constitution.

It’s the second amicus brief filed by the Blockchain Association supporting a group of Tornado Cash users appealing a lower court’s ruling that upheld OFAC’s decision to add the cryptocurrency mixer to its…

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Umami Labs CEO Alex O’Donnell grew up on the outskirts of Philadelphia before attending Temple University to study literature and economics. That path led him to devote seven years of his life as a financial journalist at Reuters, where he specialized in M&As IPOs.

He said his academic focus created a “pretty natural synthesis” when it came ot financial journalism. However, he said he became “disenchanted” with his industry while he was cooped up at home during the Covid-19 pandemic. “There really was a three-way alliance between journalists, government officials and technology companies trying to control the flow of information,” O’Donnell said in an…

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Former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is associated with crypto by virtue of his founding role in Worldcoin — but his departure from AI powerhouse OpenAI has implications of its own.

Altman was fired Friday after a boardroom coup caused by an alleged lack of candor with the board. Altman has already taken a job at Microsoft — and more than 500 OpenAI employees threatened to resign in a letter to the board.

OpenAI’s most advanced product, the ChatGPT large language model (LLM), is used by crypto developers and in crypto applications. But faith in the AI startup has been shaken by the past few turbulent days.

Elsewhere, crypto teams are seeking to create wholly decentralized AI products —…

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The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Kraken alleging it failed to register as an exchange, broker, dealer and clearing agency with the regulator and claimed it commingled customer funds. 

In a Nov. 20 complaint, the SEC claimed that since 2018, Kraken had operated as a platform that offered the unlawful sale of cryptocurrencies.

“Without registering with the SEC in any capacity, Kraken has simultaneously acted as a broker, dealer, exchange, and clearing agency with respect to these crypto asset securities.”

Additionally, the SEC alleged that Kraken’s business practices and “deficient” internal controls saw the exchange commingle customer assets with its…

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The US Securities and Exchange Commission accused crypto exchange Kraken’s parent companies of operating an unregistered exchange. 

The allegations came in a new lawsuit filed by the US securities regulator on Monday. The claims follow similar allegations contained in court complaints against Coinbase and Binance filed earlier this year. 

Payward and Payward Ventures were named as defendants in the new lawsuit. Kraken did not immediately return a request for comment. 

“Kraken’s business practices, deficient internal controls and inadequate recordkeeping present a range of additional risks that would also be prohibited for any properly registered securities intermediary,” the…

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The ongoing amendments to bitcoin ETF proposals by various fund issuers signal an approval could be coming, industry watchers have said. 

Ophelia Snyder, the president of bitcoin ETF hopeful 21Shares, said Monday that engagement with regulators indeed has a different feel this time around. 

“Right now everyone’s watching this race on a minute-by-minute, day-by-day basis…is it today, tomorrow?” she noted during an interview on Bloomberg TV. “I think that’s a challenging way of looking at this. I think the clearest indication is that we’re in a pattern break.”

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has never allowed a spot bitcoin ETF to come to market — despite…

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Equities and cryptos kicked off the abbreviated US trading week in the green, despite a swirl of market-moving headlines and macroeconomic narratives that kept traders on their toes. 

Bitcoin managed to hold above $37,000, even after falling as much as 1.7% Monday afternoon following reports that crypto exchange Binance is working with the US Department of Justice to settle criminal charges for as much as $5 billion. 

Bitcoin had stabilized to around $37,500 at time of publication. Ether similarly had recovered after nearly dipping below $2,000 midday Monday after news of Binance’s potential bill dropped. 

Read more: Binance, regulators near multibillion-dollar criminal…

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The United States House Financial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion received an education in the uses of blockchain technology in a hearing titled “Crypto Crime in Context: Breaking Down the Illicit Activity in Digital Assets.” The meeting began with a discussion of Hamas’s use of crypto for fundraising. However, the committee’s Chair, Representative French Hill, declared that as “phone and the internet aren’t to be blamed for terror financing,” crypto shouldn’t be either. The witnesses, including representatives from Consensys and Chainalysis, spoke about the need for international and public-private collaboration in stopping the…

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