Regulation

A Californian lawmaker has introduced a bill to protect actors, artists, and entertainers from artificial intelligence, by mandating employment contracts to include informed consent when it comes to digital replicates. Ash Kalra, an Assembly Member of the State of California — the lawmaker behind the bill — argued that generative AI presents a “real threat”

Mark Karpelès, the former CEO of the collapsed exchange Mt. Gox, seems to have little in the way of sympathy for former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who’s been trying to get released from prison to prepare for his upcoming trial, citing poor internet.  “When I was arrested back in 2015, the most computing power I

Alibaba announced that its proprietary large language model, an artificial intelligence system called Tongyi Qianwen, will be available for public and enterprise access throughout China starting Sept. 13.  Tongyi Qianwen is a ChatGPT-like large language model trained on a corpus of English and Chinese text. While its exact specifications aren’t known — early rumors indicated

The Delaware bankruptcy court has approved the sale of FTX digital assets. Judge John Dorsey made the ruling at a hearing on Sept. 13. Major changes were made to the order authorizing the sale on the previous day. FTX will be allowed to sell digital assets excluding Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and “certain insider-affiliated tokens”

Lawmakers in the European Union parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of the eighth iteration of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation (DAC8), a cryptocurrency tax reporting rule, in a plenary session on Sep. 13.  Held in Strasbourg, France, the session reportedly saw DAC8 receive overwhelming support in the form of 535 member votes for and just

Stoner Cats 2 LLC (SC2), the company behind the “Stoner Cats” animated series, has agreed to a cease-and-desist order and other measures imposed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission after being charged with conducting an unregistered offering of crypto-asset securities in the form of nonfungible tokens (NFTs).  According to the SEC, SC2 sold

Cryptocurrency exchange Huobi is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a controversial marketing move — the firm is rebranding from “Huobi” to “HTX,” echoing the name of the bankrupt exchange FTX. Huobi officially announced its rebranding on Sept. 13, renaming the company to the new global brand, HTX. The new naming stands for the first letters of

Adobe, IBM, Nvidia and five other companies have endorsed U.S. President Joe Biden’s voluntary artificial intelligence (AI) commitments, including watermarking AI-generated content.  This announcement was made by the White House on Tuesday, Sept 12. The White House Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, emphasized the urgency of leveraging AI’s advantages, mitigating its risks and rapid action,

The United States is one of — if not the worst — place to launch a cryptocurrency startup in the world right now, according to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, whose firm is in a legal battle with the U.S. securities regulator. “The only country I would not encourage you to start a company right now

Legislation aimed at preventing “unelected bureaucrats in Washington” from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) has been reintroduced by Representative Tom Emmer. On Sep. 12, Emmer and 49 original co-sponsors revived the “CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act” in the United States House of Representatives in a bid, they claim, to protect Americans’ right to financial

Potential jurors in the upcoming criminal trial of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried could be asked their thoughts on crypto, effective altruism and attention-deficit disorder as his lawyers want to weed out those they consider unsuitable. In court filings on Sep.11, Bankman-Fried’s lawyers and United States prosecutors separately filed their lists of proposed questions they

Former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried is likely remain behind bars until his Oct. 3 trial commences after a United States District Court judge denied his request for temporary release. On Sept. 12,  District Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Bankman-Fried’s claim that his trial preparation was hindered due to poor internet access in prison finding it wasn’t

Karl Greenwood, co-founder of OneCoin with Ruja Ignatova, was sentenced in the United States to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay $300 million on Sept. 20. Ignatova remains at large. Greenwood, who is a citizen of the United Kingdom and Sweden, was sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New

United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler testified on Sept. 12 in a Senate oversight hearing that his agency was currently using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to monitor the financial sector for signs of fraud and manipulation.  [embedded content] Gensler gave a public speech before the National Press Club on July 17

A petition was created on Change.org on Sept. 12 to oppose the use of Chainalysis forensic services by federal agencies. The petition questioned Chainalysis’ accuracy and raised legal issues related to the activities of the blockchain data analysis firm.  The petition, started by “Stop Chainalysis,” stated that Chainalysis’ software assists crime prevention efforts “by linking

Alex Mashinsky, founder and former CEO of now-bankrupt crypto lender Celsius, filed a new motion in court seeking the dismissal of the United States Federal Trade Commission case against him “in its entirety.” The legal counsel for the former Celsius boss argued that the allegations against their client do not support the claim that he knowingly made

CFTC Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero recommended regulators modernize its protection measures using technological advances as she warned that failure to do so would have a negative impact on American investors. Romero, speaking at the North American Securities Administrators Association’s annual meeting in San Diego, California, said that the government’s inability to keep pace with technology

Last week, two United States senators unveiled a bipartisan blueprint for artificial intelligence (AI) legislation. The framework put forward by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Josh Hawley advocates for mandatory licensing for AI firms and makes it clear that technology liability protections will not shield these companies from legal action. The framework proposes creating a licensing

Seemingly unfazed by a recent slew of court setbacks, United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler remains headstrong that his agency should be the one to reign over crypto — with plans to tell lawmakers the same on Sept. 12.  In the last two months, the securities regulator lost out to both Grayscale

A group of crypto and blockchain firms joined together to create a Texas crypto advocacy group, according to a Sept. 11 announcement. The group is called “Crypto Freedom Alliance of Texas,” and is founded by a16z crypto, Coinbase, Ledger, Bain Capital Crypto, Blockchain Capital, and Paradigm. The group is promoting “the development of coherent and