The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has made a significant decision by giving its approval for spot Ether exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to be listed and traded in the country. This approval comes after the SEC approved the 19b-4 filings from various financial institutions, including VanEck, BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, Franklin Templeton, ARK 21Shares, Invesco Galaxy, and Bitwise. The rule changes allowing spot Ether (ETH) ETFs were approved by the SEC’s Trading and Markets Division, unlike spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, which were approved by a five-member committee including SEC Chair Gary Gensler. It is important to note that while the BTC ETFs started trading immediately after approval, the spot Ether ETFs may take some time as the filers have yet to receive their S-1 SEC registration.
In other news, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD) in Hong Kong has concluded its investigation into the Worldcoin project. The PCPD has determined that the project’s operations in Hong Kong violated the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. As a result, Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung Lai-ling issued an enforcement notice to Worldcoin, ordering them to immediately cease all operations in Hong Kong that involve scanning and collecting irises and facial images of the public. The PCPD found that collecting face images was unnecessary as the iris scanning devices were already capable of verifying participants’ humanness in person, making the collection of face images an unnecessary step.
Binance.US has successfully appealed the suspension of its money-services business license in Florida. The Florida First District Court of Appeal ruled that the emergency suspension order issued by the state Office of Financial Regulation lacked legal justification. The suspension of Binance.US’s license came after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to violating U.S. Anti-Money Laundering law. The appeals court cited state law that states the suspension of a money-services business license can only be done if the agency provides reasons to show that the decision is fair, which the OFR failed to do.
The CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act has passed the U.S. House of Representatives in a vote that was largely partisan. The bill, which still needs to be voted on in the Senate, aims to amend the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to prohibit Federal Reserve banks from offering certain products or services directly to individuals and to prohibit the use of central bank digital currency for monetary policy. Republican supporters of the bill expressed concerns about the potential abuse of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), while Democrats focused on innovation, the dollar’s international competitiveness, and criticized the drafting of the bill. Representative Brad Sherman referred to the bill as a “word salad” that favored “crypto bros.”