Flash News

TREE NEWS reports: The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has approached Morgan Stanley and Barclays to question the banks on their overall risk exposures, conducting the inquiries simultaneously. The scope of the examinations and any specific areas of concern were not disclosed. Neither bank has commented publicly on the matter.

TREE NEWS update: Modern Treasury is seeking federal approval to operate a limited-purpose national trust bank, which would let the payments infrastructure company offer stablecoin custody and related fiat services. The application places the firm among payments and crypto companies pursuing federal trust charters to custody digital assets under US banking supervision.

TREE NEWS update: The Crypto Council for Innovation said it remains confident in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s approval of charters for crypto companies, pushing back on a lawsuit filed by banks and criticism from some lawmakers. CEO Ji Hun Kim said the organization stands behind the OCC’s decision. The advocacy group’s response follows the banking industry’s legal challenge to the charter approvals.

TREE NEWS reports: Blockchain investigator ZachXBT said he posed as a client to infiltrate a Chinese money-laundering syndicate handling funds from the Bybit hack, fronting 349,700 USDC and paying a 5% fee on every order. The broker, he said, told him in advance where North Korea’s stolen funds were headed next.

TREE NEWS update: The SEC has cleared 3x leveraged Bitcoin and Ether exchange-traded products for listing on Cboe, under proposed tickers BITH and ETHK. The products use futures and reset leverage daily, exposing longer-term holders to compounding losses. A listing date was not disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: The SEC approved a Cboe rule change allowing six Volatility Shares funds that seek triple the daily moves of Bitcoin, Ethereum, gold, silver, oil and natural gas to list on a U.S. exchange. The approval clears the leveraged products for trading, expanding access to 3x exposure across crypto and commodity markets.

TREE NEWS update: OpenAI will expand its content provenance program and add watermarking to eligible text generated by ChatGPT and Codex in the European Union over the coming weeks. The company said the move is intended to comply with the EU AI Act. The measure applies to qualifying text output produced in the EU region.

TREE NEWS update: CFTC Chair Michael Selig said the agency is using its “existing statutory authorities” to address crypto regulation after Congress failed to advance a market structure bill. His remarks follow the SEC’s own proposed crypto framework. The CLARITY vote did not move forward in Congress.

TREE NEWS update: European Central Bank supervisory board chair Claudia Buch publicly opposed an EU proposal to weaken the so-called output floor, which limits banks’ ability to cut capital requirements through internal models. Speaking at a conference in Vienna, Buch said retreating from the agreed output floor “is not a good idea” and cannot be justified. The proposal to revisit the floor is part of an EU report on boosting banking competitiveness, with legislative proposals promised for the first quarter of next year.

TREE NEWS update: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission published an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking covering retail crypto trading on margin, leverage or financing, along with a new exchange registration category built for it. Chairman Michael Selig called the framework a federal option rather than a mandate, leaving spot exchanges to the states.

TREE NEWS update: FinCEN is withdrawing a proposal that would have designated crypto mixing a “primary money laundering concern” under the PATRIOT Act. The Treasury unit cited concerns over a “chilling effect on legitimate activity” in pulling the rule, which would have imposed heightened recordkeeping and reporting duties on mixing services.

TREE NEWS update: The CFTC is seeking public comment on a framework that would create a new federal license for crypto exchanges, with leverage offerings serving as the trigger for federal oversight. The proposal would bring crypto trading venues under the agency’s supervision.

TREE NEWS update: US Federal Trade Commission Chair Ferguson sent letters to 24 large healthcare companies across the country, warning them against deceptive pricing practices. The FTC issued the warnings directly to the firms, citing false pricing conduct. No further details on the specific companies or potential enforcement actions were disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to build a comprehensive, tailored regulatory framework for retail crypto asset trading. Chairman Michael Selig said the move responds to President Trump’s directive to use the CFTC’s existing statutory authority to construct federal crypto market structure. Selig said the effort aims to preempt fraud schemes like the FTX collapse rather than prosecute after the fact. The agency is seeking public comment and wants a designated contract market subcategory for crypto.

TREE NEWS update: Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved UniCredit’s split of its Russian business, clearing the way for the Italian bank to separate its local unit. The approval covers the carve-out of UniCredit’s Russian operations, a step the lender has pursued as it seeks to reduce its exposure in the country. No further terms or timing were disclosed.

TREE NEWS update: CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said the agency is proposing its first set of crypto market rules, Regulation CTX and Regulation CAM, after Congress failed to pass the Clarity Act. The rules would give CFTC-registered exchanges a federal framework tailored to crypto assets. Unlike the Clarity Act, they would not force crypto assets to trade on CFTC-registered platforms, since the agency lacks authority to impose that without legislation, but exchanges may opt in.

TREE NEWS update: FinCEN withdrew its 2020 proposal to require banks and money services businesses to report on unhosted crypto wallets, and rescinded its 2023 finding that crypto mixing is a primary money laundering concern. The agency said it will continue monitoring mixers and may take action again in the future.

TREE NEWS update: OpenAI will introduce text watermarking, or identification, features for ChatGPT users in the European Union market. The move adds a labeling mechanism to ChatGPT-generated text for EU users, marking AI output as such. No timeline or technical details of the rollout were disclosed.