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As the market trend shifted from crypto to AI, so does the SEC! Here's what's happening. . . . . Gary Gensler, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has announced a notable change in priority, shifting his focus from the realm of cryptocurrency to the domain of artificial intelligence (AI). Having previously voiced concerns and highlighted challenges within the cryptocurrency industry, Gensler now contends that AI is the technology that truly "merits the excitement" and warrants heightened regulatory attention. Gensler's fascination with AI traces back to 1997 when his interest was piqued after witnessing the renowned defeat of Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov by IBM's supercomputer, Deep Blue. During his tenure as an Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, Gensler immersed himself in the study of AI, co-authoring a significant paper in 2020 that underscored the potential risks associated with deep learning in the financial sector. His apprehensions about the potential ramifications of widespread automation through AI in the financial field have prompted a reevaluation of regulatory strategies. Gensler acknowledges that while AI has the potential to bring substantial benefits to financial institutions and their clientele through enhanced predictive capabilities, it also carries considerable risks that necessitate attention. Among Gensler's primary concerns is the potential misuse of AI to obfuscate accountability and responsibility in the event of failures. The coordination of AI models among major trading entities could result in heightened market volatility and instability, an issue that current regulatory frameworks may not be equipped to effectively manage. In response, Gensler has taken proactive measures by introducing one of the initial regulatory frameworks for AI in the financial sector. His proposition mandates that trading firms and money managers critically assess their use of AI and predictive data to detect any instances of conflicts of interest, particularly when the interests of clients clash with corporate profits. It's important to note, however, that this shift in focus doesn't signify a relaxation of the SEC's stringent stance on cryptocurrencies. During Gensler's tenure, the SEC has actively pursued legal actions against major crypto enterprises such as Ripple, Binance, and Coinbase. Multiple lawsuits are presently underway, indicating the SEC's unwavering commitment to prosecuting cryptocurrency companies engaged in fraudulent activities and scams. Gensler's emphasis on AI arrives at a pivotal juncture, as the technology rapidly advances in automating various facets of financial processes. Do you think that SEC will be bringing guidelines on AI or start on a fringe to sue AI companies like it did with crypto? #ai #sec #crypto #airegulations #artificialintelligence

CRYPTO DIGEST 📑 Chinese sim cards on blockchain will use LayerZero technologies.  Another partner has joined the BSIM project from China Telecom and Conflux.  The Conflux blockchain and LayerZero team have announced that they are collaborating on blockchain-based SIM cards (BSIM), writes Blockworks. BSIM users will be able to transfer digital assets and messages between different blockchains using LayerZero's technology 📢 Look, well this is awesome news! A real integration as it were of blockchain into the entire technology chain of a telecom company. Hopefully this will lead to the fact that you can't do a sim card swap using a fake passport 📑 Kenya's parliament has called for Worldcoin to be shut down in the country.  The ad hoc committee also recommended that the government develop and implement common rules to regulate virtual assets.  A Kenyan parliamentary committee set up in August to investigate the operations and activities of the Worldcoin project has called for its closure, TechCrunch reported. The committee recommended blacklisting web addresses associated with the project and launching a criminal investigation into companies associated with the crypto startup 📢 The state and people tend to reject what they don't understand, and since they don't have a legal basis under it. Accordingly, they propose to close access first, and after that they will deal with it. Which, in turn, always affects the speed of innovation implementation 📑 BIS has created a system for tracking international transfers in cryptocurrency.  The data will be shared with authorities to better understand the crypto market and could form the basis for future regulation.  The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has developed a prototype system to monitor transfers in bitcoin to give authorities a clearer picture of how, when and where the cryptocurrency is being used. The BIS said in a statement that the project, codenamed Atlas, is being implemented together with the Central Banks of two countries, De Nederlandsche Bank and Deutsche Bundesbank 📢 As we previously, said - every financial institution and states are trying to use their own analyzers and their own companies and technologies. However, we should realize that there are 2-3 main companies in the world at the moment, on the basis of which such services exist. In the future, this number of companies will not increase, but decrease after it becomes clear that different states do not want the information about their transactions to be transmitted on the territory of another state, so that they do not collect any databases. Accordingly, they will think about how they can hide it or use other software to close this possibility from the outside, but since blockchain is a decentralized distribution of the network using pools, we may see the "capture" of hashrate and pools in order to be able to control the information that passes through them #crypto #blockchain #cryptonews #tech #technologies

"A Vast New Data Set Could Supercharge the AI Hunt for Crypto Money Laundering" https://ift.tt/GWUO0hs One task where AI tools have proven to be particularly superhuman is analyzing vast troves of data to find patterns that humans can't see, or automating and accelerating the discovery of those we can. That makes Bitcoin's blockchain, a public record of nearly a billion transactions between pseudonymous addresses, the perfect sort of puzzle for AI to solve. Now, a new study—along with a vast, newly released trove of crypto crime training data—may be about to trigger a leap forward in automated tools' ability to suss out illicit money flows across the Bitcoin economy. On Wednesday, researchers from cryptocurrency tracing firm Elliptic, MIT and IBM published a paper that lays out a new approach to finding money laundering on Bitcoin's blockchain. Rather than try to identify cryptocurrency wallets or clusters of addresses associated with criminal entities such as dark web black markets, thieves or scammers, the researchers collected patterns of Bitcoin transactions that led from one of those known bad actors to a cryptocurrency exchange where dirty crypto might be cashed out. They then used those example patterns to train an AI model capable of spotting similar money movements—what they describe as a kind of detector capable of spotting the “shape” of suspected money laundering behavior on the blockchain. Now, they're not only releasing an experimental version of that AI model for detecting Bitcoin money laundering but also publishing the training data set behind it: a 200-million transaction trove of Elliptic's tagged and classified blockchain data which the researchers describe as the biggest of its kind ever to be made public by a thousandfold. “We're providing about a thousand times more data, and instead of labeling illicit wallets, we're labeling examples of money laundering which might be made up of chains of transactions,” says Tom Robinson, Elliptic's chief scientist and co-founder. “It's a paradigm shift in the way that blockchain analytics is used.” Blockchain analysts have used machine learning tools for years to automate and sharpen their tools for tracing crypto funds and identifying criminal actors. In 2019, in fact, Elliptic already partnered with MIT and IBM to create a AI model for detecting suspicious money movements and released a much smaller dataset of around 200,000 transactions that they had used to train it. For this new research, by contrast, the same team of researchers took a much more ambitious approach. Rather than try to classify single transactions as legitimate or illicit, Elliptic analyzed collections of up to six transactions between Bitcoin address clusters it had already identified as illicit actors and the exchanges where those previously identified shady entities sold their crypto, positing that the patterns of transactions between criminals and their cashout points could serve as examples of money ...

3 days in 2 minutes Midweek Web3 Catch-up If you’re in the #Web3 Ecosystem, you probably know how necessary it is to stay up to date with the current happenings around space. In this midweek catch-up, I’ll cover all of the news between Monday and Wednesday. If written content is not very digestible for you then check out the video at the bottom of this post. Enjoy. - South Korea 🇰🇷 passes Cryptocurrency bill to tackle unfair trading. The South Korean government in a bid to prevent further incidents like the Terra implosion passed the Virtual Assets User Protection legislation including 19 crypto related bills. - Belarus 🇧🇾 makes move to ban P2P cryptocurrency trading in the country, cites increasing levels of crimes including Fraud as the basis for this move. - Singapore’s 🇸🇬 Central bank, MAS announces restriction on crypto service providers. The Apex bank of the country has restricted CSPs from providing retail lending and staking services while still allowing the same services for Institutional investors in the country. - American Crypto Exchange, Revolut, delists ADA, MATIC and SOL. - Kraken Exchange ordered by court to disclose user data to IRS for tax compliance. - Thai 🇹🇭 SEC bans use of customer crypto assets for lending and investment - Polygon Labs proposes “Polygon 2.0” architecture. In a tweet, the account proposed a zk-based 4-layered architecture that would “make polygon the value layer of the internet” They also introduced the concept of Aggregator, to make cross-chain messages seamless. - Ton Blockchain launches on-Chain encrypted messaging - China to tighten supply for AI chip manufacturing raw materials - Credit suisse and Swiss football association release women’s football NFT collection - Chinese 🇨🇳 crypto-friendly DBS bank has launched as digital Yuan transaction tool. DBS in an announcement today introduced an e-CNY merchant solution to aid businesses situated in Mainland China. - Hong Kong policy proposal urges the government to issue the country’s own HKD pegged stablecoin. The paper co-authored by some of the country’s leading minds suggested this stating it would aid in de-dollarization efforts and improve payment systems. - Binance Australia was reportedly searched by the ASIC (Australian Securities and Investments Commission) According to the people, In an event that was part of an investigation into their local derivatives business, the regulators visited multiple company locations. - New BRC-69 standard removes ordinal data limit. In an innovation spearheaded by “Recursive inscriptions”, the new standard allows for data to be extracted from existing inscriptions and used by new ones. BRC-69 aims to reduce time and cost constraints

China May Be Reversing Its Anti-Crypto Stance: Chainalysis China could be contemplating a crypto comeback as one of the nation’s close neighbors adopts a more welcoming stance toward blockchain at large. In a newly published report, blockchain data platform Chainalysis found that recent crypto volume transferred to Hong Kong has rivaled that transferred to mainland China over the past year, despite hosting only 0.5% of the latter’s population. “Hong Kong is an extremely active crypto market by raw transaction volume, with an estimated $64.0 billion in crypto received between July 2022 and June 2023,” wrote Chainalysis in an excerpt from its 2023 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report. By comparison, China received $86.4 billion in transactions over the same period. While China enacted a series of bans on all things crypto in 2021, Hong Kong is now actively promoting Web3 development. The region adopted a policy framework that subjects similar crypto and TradFi services to the same regulatory standards in June, and provided its first retail crypto exchange license to HashKey in August. The trend “may signal that the Chinese government is reversing course on digital assets, or at least becoming more open to crypto initiatives.” wrote Chainalysis. Thus far, most activity in the region remains “over the counter” (OTC)—a private environment designed for large institutional transfers not to affect the market. By contrast, China boasted a greater share of “retail” volume (transfers under $10,000 in value) than Hong Kong, boasting figures of 8.5% and 4%. China also had a much larger share of “professional” size transfers (between $10,000 and $1 million) at 34.8%, versus Hong Kong at 25.1%. Interestingly, the vast majority of crypto activity in China (73.5%) still stems from centralized exchanges, whereas most of Hong Kong’s (68.3%) is connected to DeFi. In a statement to Decrypt, Chainalysis Head of APAC Policy Chengyi Ong explained that China’s approach to banning all crypto transactions—despite having slowed activity—ultimately doesn’t work. “Crypto activity remains substantial, which suggests that the bans have either been ineffective or loosely enforced,” she explained. “In lieu of broad-based bans, clear regulatory frameworks would better protect end-users by enabling them to engage with digital assets in a safer way." Read more: https://lnkd.in/dffqVVE2 People Over Profits

Quick overview of recent developments for the crypto and Web3 space in Hongkong and China #crypto #cryptocurrency #web3 #metaverse #blockchain #blockchaintechnology #hongkong #china

This is a pretty great metaphor what what "blockchain" is and does: Blockchain = Spreadsheet Technology Yes, it's honestly that simple. Every entry, cell change, function, creation, deletion and ALL changelogs are permanent and publicly recorded by a peer-to-peer network. User data entries that happen at the same time are layered on top of each other and registered as one transaction. That's what a "block" is. The "chain" is the sequential record of these stacked transactions. It's encrypted and maintained by a network of notaries. If any one notary gets hacked and someone attempts to change the record, it will always default back to the original record. That's what makes it "encrypted," among other things in the coding. Simple metaphors: Ethereum = A spreadsheet document. Ether, the Crypto Currency = The document's FUNCTION for value transfer. A Smart Contract = A page on the document. A Non-Fungible Token = A cell on the page. The FUNCTION for value transfer is... Total Value in Community Pool / Total Supply of Units of Account. $100 value in Ether / 100 Ether coins = $1 per ether coin. $50 value in Ether / 100 Ether coins = $0.50 per ether coin. Hard-math, with no central controls on the supply of community value of units of account. I figured out early that the cells on the pages could be claimed and transacted as property, so I formed Intellectual Property Puzzles out of them. We have a brand, a few art collections, and a few shows. All are historical in their own way because of the cells time-stamps, which put us at the forefront of this history. Permanent, public, programmable ownership of intellectual property, ADVANCED spreadsheet-style. Some folks recorded titles to cartoons in these cells and traded them like stocks based on "rarities." 99% of the rest of the sector are building networks, tools, and collaborative properties. We're not a bunch of cartoon cults. We're not transacting ponzi schemes on a dark web running on a factory farm of pikachus. We're simply using permanent, public spreadsheet technology to title labor as property and set our own market terms. Because that's seen as "disruptive" to the status quo - the value of labor is controlled by greed, not the market AND IP is sold as a bonded wealth instrument - you've been fed propaganda that's led to self-righteous rejection of this technology. Rally around Let Me Out Productions! We need all the help we can get!

Binance CEO Highlights Timing Of Beijing’s Web3 Whitepaper, Amid 🇨🇳 & 🇭🇰's Crypto Regulatory Changes... 💥 The intersection of Beijing's Web3 Whitepaper & Hong Kong's crypto regulation push, could be a new era for digital assets in Asia? Well, on May 27th, Beijing released an “Internet 3.0 (Web3) Innovation & Development” Whitepaper, outlining advancements and support for Internet 3.0 and the Metaverse. With Binance CEO CZ, coming to Twitter and highlighting, that, its “interesting timing on this Web 3.0 white paper from the Beijing government tech committee with the June 1st anticipation in Hong Kong” The simultaneous release of Beijing’s Web3 Whitepaper and Hong Kong’s regulatory push for crypto exchanges may signal the beginning of a more open approach to digital assets in the region. Jason Fang from Sora Ventures shared similar thinking, with him viewing Hong Kong as the “test bed” for crypto regulation in the region. The development, thus, raises questions about the potential implications and impact on the broader crypto industry in the area #Web3Whitepaper... 📃 The report was released as a partnership between the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Zhongguancun Science Park Management Committee, entitled the “Beijing Internet 3.0 Innovation & Development Whitepaper (2023).” It reportedly emphasizes a commitment to Web3 and Metaverse innovations. Published by state-backed media conglomerate Shanghai United, Chaoyang District plans to invest no less than 100 Million Yuan annually in special funds to support the construction of the Web3 industry ecosystem. In an effort by the district to become a leading region for the “Internet 3.0 industry by 2025 #HongKongOpeningUpToCrypto...👍 Hong Kong’s Financial Secretary, Paul Chan, has announced the completion of the government’s crypto regulation framework. Regulatory requirements for virtual asset providers are set to be similar to those for traditional financial institutions from June 1st, marking a hugh change in the region’s approach to crypto regulation. Chan also, emphasized Hong Kong’s commitment to supporting the growth of the Web3 in Asia, becoming a hub for crypto innovation. The Hong Kong SFC is now easing the requirements for responsible officers (ROs) on crypto exchanges in preparation for the June 1st application opening for crypto trading licenses under the SFO, AML and AMLO. #AllEyesOnMainlandChina... 🇨🇳 👀 The Crypto community is arguably, going to be closely monitoring the unfolding developments in Beijing and Hong Kong, as they may shape the future of the this blockchain based and digital assets industry and ecosystem, within in the region and yes, beyond. With possible benefits being on many different fronts, most notably including and certainly not limited to. Increased innovation, and a more transparent regulatory environment, as well, challenges such as meeting compliance requirements and adapting to new regulations. #LetGoooo... 🚀🚀