U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said Wednesday (Feb. 12) that the federal government would be rolling out new regulations regarding cryptocurrency at the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FCEN).
He said that there had to be a balancing act — the tech should be allowed to move forward and innovate. Still, they want to avoid letting cryptocurrencies become a new version of how people once utilized Swiss secret-number bank accounts for alleged money laundering.
“… We’re about to roll out some significant new requirements at FinCEN,” he said, according to Cointelegraph.
In the U.S., interest in cryptocurrency is on the rise, as military contractors have begun to see its uses and the Federal Reserve seeing the potential in digital coins.
The comments by Mnuchin were made at a discussion of President Trump’s $4.8 trillion budget proposal.
In other news, soccer powerhouse Barcelona is teaming with Chiliz, a FinTech platform, with the intent of creating its own blockchain-based token for the team.
Chiliz has created a coin called Barca Fan Token due to its partnership with the Spanish sports giant, which can be used on its social media app Socios.
The outcome is the result of canvassing on Socios for months, as the company tried to get a test sample of 100,000 users for beta sampling. The platform is no longer in the beta phase, though, officials have said.
Meanwhile, a Peter Thiel-backed venture fund, Valar Ventures, lent a hand in a $30 million second round of financing for crypto trading and lending platform BlockFi.
BlockFi, based in Jersey City, NJ, will use the money to boost staff and start work on additional projects. Co-founder Zac Prince said 2020 would be all about working on reaching people who didn’t already use cryptocurrency, going for “more mainstream” acceptance.
The firm has about $650 million in assets and said other backers aside from Valar included Morgan Creek Digital, Avon Ventures and Winklevoss Capital.
BlockFi caught people’s attention last year when it started providing interest-bearing accounts for offering returns paid out in Bitcoin or Ether.
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