Latest news with #regulation
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Hong Kong Releases Guidance on Strict Rules for Stablecoin Issuers
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) released guidance on Tuesday for stablecoin licensing, outlining strict capital, reserve, governance and technology standards for issuers seeking to operate in the city's regulated digital asset market. The guidance also covered rules on money laundering and transitional measures for issuers of existing stablecoins. Stablecoins are digital assets that are pegged to other assets like fiat currency. HKMA's stablecoin regime is set to take effect on Friday and a bill on rules for the sector was passed in May. Already 40 firms are waiting to apply for a stablecoin license, though the regulator is reportedly expected to approve less than 10 applications initially. HKMA CEO Eddie Yue last week warned companies to not be overly excited about the coming regulatory regime, particularly if their business is not related to stablecoins. The regulator wants to take a cautious approach as outlined in its consultation conclusions on money laundering. Issuers are yet to prove that they can effectively mitigate against money laundering, HKMA said in its paper. Unless a stablecoin issuer that is licensed can prove that it can effectively mitigate money laundering risks, it will need to verify the identity of every stablecoin holder "even if the holder has no customer relationship with the licensee," the HKMA consultation response document said. The document also outlined that supervised virtual asset service providers or a reliable third party can also verify the identity of its stablecoin holders. Hong Kong also has a license regime for crypto companies and started awarding licenses last year. "The HKMA will continue to evaluate the effectiveness and appropriateness of such measures considering, among other things, the evolving regulatory landscape," the regulator said in its Tuesday consultation response. Stablecoin issuers which are fully prepared should apply by the end of September, the HKMA press release said. A realistic timeline to start awarding licenses is early next year, Darryl Chan Wai-man, deputy chief executive of HKMA, told South China Morning Post on Tuesday talking about the region's stablecoins regime. Parts of this article were generated with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy. Update and Correction (July 29, 18:21 UTC): Adds details throughout from the guidelines and context from South China Morning Post at the bottom. Also corrects the story to say HKMA wants firms that are fully prepared to apply by the end of September, an earlier version said end of August.
CBS News
6 hours ago
- Health
- CBS News
Texas Senate advances bill to ban THC, with final passage expected Friday
The Texas Senate approved the second reading of a bill banning THC products on Wednesday with a 21-9 vote. The final vote will take place on Friday. Just over a month ago, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a similar bill banning products containing THC. He explicitly asked lawmakers to regulate, not ban, hemp products, calling on them to "craft a law that does as much as possible to corral the problems while also being structured so that it can go into effect this year." Senators argued that won't work. "We'll regulate it," Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said last week. "We'll regulate it by banning it. Because we already tried regulating it." State senators revived it in the special session, filing nearly identical legislation and passing it unanimously out of committee with a 10-0 vote last week. Senate Bill 5, by Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, bans Delta 8, Delta 9 and all other forms of intoxicating THC, including beverages. It also prohibits the retail sale of any cannabinoid in the state, with the exception of CBD and CBG. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said SB 5 does not alter Texas' Compassionate Use Program (TCUP) or laws related to the farming of hemp. He also said the bill does not impact the sale or use of CBD or CBG products. "Since 2019, bad actors have taken advantage of a loophole in Texas agriculture law to sell potent, intoxicating forms of THC that have nothing to do with agriculture," Patrick said in a statement. "These shops have rapidly spread throughout Texas, endangering the health and safety of children and families across our state, with no accountability. These products, often containing dangerous levels of THC, are marketed directly towards young people with colorful packaging and images, making THC look like candy or sweets." Patrick also said that SB 5 has the support of every law enforcement agency in the state, the Texas Medical Association, the Texas Pediatric Society, and "many families impacted by this scourge sweeping our state." Advocates argue a ban would close hundreds of businesses and hurt Texans who use these products. "Hemp-derived consumables are affordable, accessible and effective," Mitch Fuller, who represents the Texas VFW, previously said to CBS News Texas. Fuller said many of the VFW's 65,000 veterans see the industry as an alternative to alcohol and opioids. But senators dismissed those claims. "We're taking a stance on this," said Fuller. "Again, no one's using us; we are doing this on our own volition because it helps us. It works great." The federal and Texas governments legalized hemp in 2018 and 2019, respectively, with agricultural uses in mind. The laws differentiated hemp from illegal forms of cannabis by defining it as having 0.3% "delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol" or less. The laws didn't explicitly cap other forms of THC, like delta-8 and delta-10, which aren't naturally found in large quantities, but have similar psychoactive effects to delta-9. Cannabis companies jumped on the loophole, providing Texas retailers with products containing the unregulated THC compounds. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and its sibling, cannabidiol (CBD), are produced by the same cannabis plant and have similar chemical structures but differ dramatically in their mechanisms of action and effects on brain functions, according to the National Institutes of Health. THC and CBD both have therapeutic properties, however, impairments and increased incidence of mental health diseases are associated with acute and chronic THC use, according to the NIH. NIH also said there are significant side effects are associated with chronic use of high-dose CBD. The bill now heads to the House for consideration. If the House also passes the bill, it will go to Abbott for approval, veto, or inaction. The Senate's approval could lead to another showdown with Abbott.
Forbes
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Forbes
Rise Of The Unrule: Fewer Rules, Fewer Agencies, And No Apocalypse
There was Hollywood's The Day the Earth Stood Still. Now meet Washington's Year the Regulation Stopped. The end of July 2025 finds just 1,490 finalized regulations published in the Federal Register, which itself stands at 35,964 pages. A typical year concludes with a bit over 3,000 completed rules. That's a milestone: this first year of the second Trump administration is on track—just as we noted at mid-year—to deliver the lowest rule count ever recorded, even lower than the 2,964 issued by Trump in 2019. In the realm of these notice-and-comment rules, Trump is besting his past cross-agency birdies with eagles. What is more, fully 243 of those final rules and 7,648 of the pages came from Biden in January, leaving Trump with a net of only 1,247 rules (and 28,316 pages). This is no blip. Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy and more boasting of dramatic rollbacks of unnecessary regulations, staff cuts, office closures and contract terminations. But the sub-3,000 rule trajectory is actually eclipsed by something even more noteworthy. This unprecedented stall in regulatory activity isn't just about fewer rules—it marks the rise of the 'Unrule.' Many of the 'rules' from the Trump administration aren't new mandates at all, but rather delays, withdrawals, recissions and RIP declarations. Even the 945 proposed rules so far tend to be deregulatory. Where necessary, some rules are being rewritten with fresh public input. But more broadly, the era is defined by the defunding of programs and the shuttering of offices. During Trump first term, operating under a 'one-in, ten-out' policy, most 'significant' regulatory actions (a label rooted in a Clinton-era executive order) were deregulatory in nature, as the chart here shows. Now, Trump 2.0 has adopted a more aggressive version of one-in, ten-out, making the Unrule even more stark. For example, of the 1,490 rules issued so far, only 76 are 'significant' final rules. And among those we find: Now, let me offer a galaxy-sized caveat: Trump retains many interventionist, anti-market, and outright swampy tendencies -- on issues ranging from antitrust to AI to price regulation and tariffs. His economic management tends toward the transactional rather than a principled federal neglect, meaning the welcome mid-year rule drought cannot yet be presented as pure deregulation. Still, what's unfolding is rather astonishing. While conventional voices wail about chaos and disarray in the White House, it's becoming clear that much regulation was never needed, was constitutionally suspect, and amounted to bureaucratic overreach. The so-called 'chaos' is merely the old administrative state being tamed. The Administrative Procedure Act (APA), long defended as the referee of the regulatory game and protector of the public, appears suspect. Under past administrations, agencies routinely invoked the APA's 'good cause' exception to issue final rules without public comment. But now, the same APA is being used to block Trump's use of that very rationale to undo what was never legitimate lawmaking in the first place. In today's regulatory state, repealing a rule often requires writing another one just to kill it. The backlash against the Unrule makes it plain who really benefits from the APA and the deep state. If lawmaking—including regulation—were left to Congress rather than delegated to unelected bureaucrats, we wouldn't need an APA. That should be the goal. In the meantime, the administration and Congress should formalize the concept of the Unrule in the Federal Register and Unified Agenda so that the public could search the documents electronically and readily isolate the deregulatory from the conventionally regulatory, unlike my crude roundup above. In the first Trump term, year-end reports from the White House Office of Management and Budget detailed the 'Deregulatory' actions seen in the table above, but that transparency and disclosure vanished immediately under Biden--not that his administration had any deregulation to showcase. As the administration and Congress de-scale the administrative state with Unrules and more, they must recognize that entrenched agencies have workarounds. They'll lean on guidance documents, bulletins, policy memos, and other sub-regulatory decrees to regulatory less directly. These proclamations shape behavior, but conveniently avoid that vaunted APA's notice-and-comment strictures. Several of Trump's orders rightly target these documents, but he really should go further: reissue and strengthen his 2019 order requiring agencies to purge outdated guidance and post all current ones in searchable online portals - explicitly noting that they're non-binding. The key takeaway from Trump's first six months is this: we no longer need to squint at the Federal Register to guess what's regulatory and what's deregulatory. The rise of the Unrule signals the need for Congress to formalize deregulatory policy alongside regulatory policy. We need better tools to disentangle binding rules from deregulatory actions – and from the vast ocean of sub-regulatory guidance. It is a remarkable change to discover that many of the 1,485 rules issued so far this year aren't substantive regulations in the traditional form of entailing burdensome compliance. They're mop-up operations: delays, halts, and reversals. But such efforts can be temporary. They're like putting yellow caution tape around the old red tape—until the next administration arrives to string it all back up. The year 2025 has shown us something that 80 years of APA-era rulemaking tried to obscure: that life without constant new federal rules is not only possible—it might be preferable. It has offered at least a fleeting glimpse of life without constant federal micro-management. And guess what? The Earth still turns. But agencies still exist, still get funded, and still issue guidance. So this moment must not be wasted. It's time not only to eliminate unnecessary rules—but to begin phasing out the agencies that shouldn't exist in the first place. The rise of the Unrule presents a rare opportunity—not just for deregulation, but for rethinking the very concept of regulation.
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
White House in crypto policy report calls for SEC action, new legislation
July 30 (Reuters) - A cryptocurrency working group formed by President Donald Trumpon Wednesday outlined the administration's stances on market-defining crypto legislation and called on the U.S. securities regulator to create new rules specific to digital assets. In a factsheet ahead of a landmark report, the White House urged Congress to move forward with legislation that would create a formal crypto regulatory regime, but implored lawmakers to include additional provisions in the bill. Those include allowing trading platforms to also custody crypto and providing a tailored disclosure regime for issuers of crypto securities. The White House also encouraged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to use their existing authorities to "immediately enable the trading of digital assets at the federal level." Shortly after taking office in January, Trump ordered the creation of a crypto working group tasked with proposing new regulations, making good on his campaign promise to overhaul U.S. crypto policy. Wednesday's report is a culmination of the task force's work so far and its first public findings. In line with Trump's January executive order, it will lay out several new policies from tax provisions to capital markets rules that it says should be enacted to advance the policy goals of the pro-crypto White House. The working group led by Trump official Bo Hines includes several administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, and Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought. On the campaign trail last year, Trump courted crypto cash by pledging to be a "crypto president" and promote the adoption of digital assets. That is in stark contrast to former President Joe Biden's regulators, who, in a bid to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering, cracked down on the industry. The Biden administration sued exchanges Coinbase COIN.O, Binance, and dozens more, alleging they were flouting U.S. laws. Trump's SEC has since dropped those cases. Wednesday's report comes just two weeks after the House of Representatives passed a bill called the Clarity Act that would create a broad regulatory guidelines for crypto, and the U.S. Senate is considering its own version of the measure. Earlier this month, Trump signed into law a bill to create federal rules for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the U.S. dollar. That move was hailed as a major win for the digital asset industry, but the White House has said it wants Congress to pass market structure legislation like the Clarity Act next, which would have far wider repercussions for the industry. The report will ask lawmakers to consider several additional measures in the final version of the bill, which could influence ongoing discussions on Capitol Hill. The White House said that Congress should provide the CFTC with the authority to oversee crypto spot markets, and should recognize the potential of decentralized finance technology, referring to blockchain-based platforms that allow users to transact without intermediaries. The report will also offer several recommendations for the SEC and the CFTC, encouraging the regulators to use safe harbors and regulatory sandboxes to allow "innovative financial products to reach consumers without bureaucratic delays." That could include tokenization, which is the process of turning financial assets - such as bank deposits, stocks, bond funds and even real estate - into crypto assets. Crypto firms and others have been increasingly discussing the prospect of tokenization. Coinbase recently told Reuters it was seeking a green light from the SEC to offer blockchain-based stocks. The SEC has yet to weigh in publicly on that request. The crypto sector has for years argued that existing U.S. regulations are inappropriate for cryptocurrencies and has called for Congress and regulators to write new ones that clarify when a crypto token is a security, commodity, or falls into another category, such as stablecoins. The president's support for the crypto industry has sparked conflict-of-interest concerns, which at times have threatened to derail congressional crypto legislation. Trump's family has launched cryptocurrency meme coins, and the president also holds a stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform. The White House has denied that any conflicts of interest are present.
New York Times
7 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
White House Urges ‘Pro-Innovation Mind-Set' to Crypto in New Report
The White House released a report on Wednesday calling for U.S. agencies to promote cryptocurrency trading and craft new regulations for the industry, the latest step in President Trump's wide-ranging embrace of the crypto world. The report was largely an elaboration of policy proposals the White House had already backed, crystallizing the Trump administration's permissive approach to crypto regulation. In 168 pages, it called on banking regulators, financial authorities, tax officials and U.S. lawmakers to implement policies that would advance the industry's agenda. Comparing crypto to world-changing inventions like the railroad and the internet, the report said the United States should 'adopt a pro-innovation mind-set toward digital assets' and ensure that crypto becomes a 'hallmark of the new American Golden Age.' Since taking office in January, Mr. Trump has enthusiastically promoted crypto, prompting fans in the industry to proclaim him the first 'Bitcoin president.' He has issued executive orders to advance crypto priorities, signed a piece of landmark legislation that created new rules for a type of crypto and ended a yearslong law enforcement campaign against the biggest companies in the industry. At the same time, Mr. Trump has made digital currencies a cornerstone of his family business, creating ethical conflicts that have virtually no precedent in U.S. history. Just days before his inauguration, he started marketing a type of cryptocurrency called a memecoin, an experimental asset that his administration is now deciding how to regulate. Mr. Trump and his sons also run a crypto start-up, World Liberty Financial, which offers a popular form of digital currency known as a stablecoin. The bill that Mr. Trump signed created a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a landmark moment that the industry celebrated with a ceremony at the White House this month. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
