Here are the latest updates from the crypto world
According to a report from Bloomberg, Coinbase is in advanced talks to buy Deribit, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. Coinbase's existing derivatives platform will be bolstered by acquiring derivates, which are the world's largest venue for trading Bitcoin BTC$84,170 and Ether ETH$1,985 options.
Regulators in Dubai have reportedly been altered to el talks by Coinbase and Deribit. If the deal goes through, the license that Deribit holds will have to be transferred to Coinbase, as per a Bloomberg report which cited unnamed sources.
According to Cointelegraph, In January, Bloomberg reported that a deal with Coinbase could value Deribit at between $4 billion and $5 billion.
Bloomberg said, Deribit lists options, futures and spot cryptocurrencies. Its total trading volumes last year were around $1.2 trillion.
Cryptocurrency mixer, Tornado cash has been dropped by the US Treasury Department from its sanctions list, the agency said on March 21.
This removal is a result of a January ruling by a US appeals court, which stated that the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) cannot sanction Tornado’s smart contracts because they are not the property of any foreign national.
According to the court ruling, “Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts (the lines of privacy-enabling software code) are not the ‘property’ of a foreign national or entity, meaning- OFAC overstepped its congressionally defined authority.”
The Treasury in a March 21 statement, said OFAC removed several dozen Tornado-affiliated smart contract addresses on the Ethereum blockchain network from its sanctions list.
The former director of the Office of Internet Enforcement at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), John Reed Stark, pushed back against the idea of regulatory reform at the first SEC crypto roundtable.
The previous regulator said the Securities Act of 1933 and 1934 should remain unchanged for digital assets and urged that digital assets should be considered securities under the current laws.
Stark said, “The people buying crypto are not collectors. We all know that they are investors, and the mission of the SEC is to protect investors."
The former official added:
"The volume of case law has developed so quickly because of all these crypto firms. They went for this sort of delay, delay, delay, idea, and they hired the best law firms in the world, and these law firms all fought the SEC with incredible briefs."