TRM Talks

Hosting the largest number of internet users per capita in the world, Latin America has seen a booming wave of technological advancement in recent years. In just the last two years, we have seen an explosion of interest in digital assets in the region. Just last year, El Salvador became the first country in the world to approve a cryptocurrency as an official legal tender, leading to a global disc...

A year ago next month, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the creation of the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), building upon their Digital Currency Initiative (DCI),  with a mission to “to tackle complex investigations and prosecutions of criminal misuses of cryptocurrency, particularly crimes committed by virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services and mone...

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) recently sanctioned cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, which has been used by North Korean cyber criminals such as state-sponsored Lazarus Group to support cyber activities and launder the stolen proceeds of hacks against cryptocurrency businesses. This designation of Tornado Cash is a watershed moment, not only for the...

Over the last few years, we have seen global regulators walk a fine line as they attempt to regulate digital assets without stifling innovation even as the technology moves at the speed of the internet. Nowhere has this been more true than in Singapore, where regulators have sought to launch a framework for digital assets focused on creating a welcoming environment for cryptocurrency businesses wh...

While the headlines coming out of London this week may have been related to politics, scandal, and upheaval at 10 Downing Street, financial regulators have been hard at work the last few months providing consultations, reports, responses, and guidance or issues related to cryptocurrency. Ari Redbord sat down to talk discuss UK crypto regulation James Gillespie, Policy Advisor, Sanctions & Illi...

As global policymakers continue to build legal and regulatory frameworks for cryptocurrency, compliance professionals at cryptocurrency businesses and financial institutions are working to ensure that they are building robust policies and procedures to mitigate the risks of fraud and financial crime.    In this TRM Talk, we’ll look at today's key issues and challenges for compliance team...

Decentralized finance – DeFi – has created an entire on-chain Wall Street – a digital financial services industry where users engage with software called smart contracts. With DeFi, you can do most of the things that banks support — earn interest, borrow, lend, buy insurance, trade derivatives, trade assets, and more — but at the speed of the internet. Only a handful of regulators globally have we...

We saw a series of calculated and coordinated actions leading to the takedown of Hydra, the world's largest and longest-running darknet market. In 2021, Hydra accounted for an estimated 80% of all darknet market-related cryptocurrency transactions, and since 2015, the marketplace has received approximately $5.2 billion in cryptocurrency.   In the wake of these actions, a panel of subject matt...

Earlier this year, President Biden signed a long-awaited crypto executive order on “Ensuring Responsible Innovation in Digital Assets (Order),” and issued this fact sheet. While regulatory agencies have been providing crypto-related guidance and taking enforcement actions for years, the White House, with this executive order, intends to outline “the first-ever, whole-of-government approach to addr...

In the wake of the invasion of Ukraine, we have seen a wave of U.S. and European sanctions targeting Russia. Key financial institutions, the Russian Central bank, elites, key sectors such as energy, mining, telecommunications, and transportation have all been hit. Will Russia turn to cryptocurrency to evade sanctions? In this TRM Talks, Ari Redbord, Head of Legal and Government Affairs at TRM, is...

A Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is a community-governed entity with no central authority. Imagine a corporation — made up of a network of individuals with a common interest — where the governance rules and decision-making are executed by software programs and the community shares a bank account funded with cryptocurrency for the purpose of fulfilling their shared vision. We have seen...

In April 2021, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon signed the state’s DAO-focused Bill 38 into law, allowing Wyoming to recognize DAOs as limited liability corporations (LLCs). The law went into effect in July 2021. LLCs are hybrid entities that combine the characteristics of a corporation with those of a partnership or sole proprietorship. As explained to Coindesk by TRM Talks alum, Wyoming Sen. Chris Rothf...

Over the last few years, we have seen global regulators — from Singapore to Hong Kong, the U.S. to the U.K — zero in on crypto transactions. And much of that discussion has centered around one regulation: the Travel Rule.   While the Travel Rule has been discussed and debated, we are now hearing a louder drumbeat for implementation. What does that mean for crypto compliance and how should fir...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently announced that it has arrested and charged two individuals with laundering funds associated with the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. According to charges filed in federal court, the hacker stole 119,754 thousand BTC, which at the time of the breach, was worth around $71 million. Today that bitcoin is worth around $4.5 billion. The Bitfin...

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) — unique crypto assets hashed to a blockchain — have taken the world by storm. From Cryptopunks to NBA Top Shot, Beeple to Bored Apes, NFTs have impacted sports, pop culture, gaming and art.  There are discussions of NFTs in healthcare, real estate, record keeping, and myriad other use cases where certification of authenticity is critical. How can businesses get inv...

On October 28, 2021, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released its Updated Guidance For A Risk Based Approach For Virtual Assets and Virtual Asset Providers (guidance or final guidance). The guidance hit on some of the hottest topics in crypto including DeFi, NFTs, unhosted wallets, stablecoins and the travel rule.   Here are some takeaways:   When it comes to DeFi, you need to use...

Todd Conklin, Counselor to the Deputy Secretary, joined a special edition of TRM Talks to announce and explain the action: "New industry-specific guidance outlines sanctions compliance best practices tailored to the unique risks posed in this dynamic space, while new data from [FinCEN] shows the increasing threat ransomware posed to the U.S financial sector, businesses, and the public during the f...

For crypto exchanges and other digital asset service providers, the nuts and bolts of a robust compliance program are many — from FinCEN to FATF, SARS to subpoenas, transaction monitoring to the travel rule.  As legislators and regulators around the globe attempt to bring legal clarity to crypto, compliance teams are meanwhile tasked with understanding and applying current regulatory framewor...

Treasury officials offer additional commentary on their first crypto exchange action and advisory in an exclusive interview with TRM Labs.   U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took its first-ever action against a cryptocurrency exchange, SUEX.io, a concierge cryptocurrency exchanger incorporated in Czechia but operating in Russia. This action comes as the United States attempt...

The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security said recently, “As ransomware attacks continue to rise around the world, businesses and other organizations must prioritize their cybersecurity. Cybercriminals have targeted critical infrastructure, small businesses, hospitals, police departments, schools, and more." The White House has stressed the need to work with international partners and the private se...

The FBI was created in 1908 to address fast moving technological developments of the day. That same year Henry Ford's Model T began rolling off assembly lines making automobiles affordable to the masses and attractive to illicit actors who could drive cross country on violent crime sprees -- think Bonnie and Clyde. Indeed, it was cross-border technology that called for a national law enforcement e...

For decades, policymakers across the globe have increasingly used economic sanctions to disrupt terror networks, limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction, punish human rights violations, deter election interference, and isolate rogue regimes. While the United States, the European Union and the United Nations deploy sanctions differently, all three focus on one common goal - cutting off illi...

The state of Wyoming is known as the Wild West - a land of wide open spaces, the nation's most iconic national parks, and rodeo broncin' bucks. But Wyoming, over the last few years, has become known for something else - cryptocurrency. So how has Wyoming become the new frontier for financial innovation? It could be a forward leaning approach to chartering "crypto banks," favorable legislation that...

On January 6, 2021, the storming of the United States Capitol by a mix of rioters, hooligans, and militants, bent on upending the Democratic process, shined a spotlight on the already growing threat of Domestic Extremism. Domestic Extremism, motivated by an array of grievances, ideologies, and white supremacy is what the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called, in 2020, “the most persistent an...

The Internal Revenue Service's (IRS), for years, has been the tip of the spear for financial fraud investigations.   But in 2020, the IRS doubled down creating the Fraud Enforcement Office (OFE) focused on rooting out tax evasion, abusive tax avoidance scams and other malicious activity including the use of cryptocurrency to facilitate fraudulent activity. The OFE, part of IRS's Small Busines...