/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/4NVIFKWS7FIN5OCZDXMFJS7XYA.jpg "US Fed clarifies process for banks to transact in stablecoins")
The U.S. Federal Reserve building in Washington, D.C./File Photo
Aug 8 (Reuters) – State banks that are a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve system should obtain a written supervisory nonobjection from the Fed before issuing, holding or transacting in dollar tokens used to facilitate payments, such as stablecoins, the central bank said in a new supervisory letter Tuesday.
The Fed also said it is creating a new supervisory program to oversee the activities of the banks it supervises related to cryptocurrency, blockchain technology and tech-driven nonbank partnerships, with the aim of complementing its existing supervisory process and strengthening the oversight of tech-driven activities.
The new announcements, which were sent Tuesday to supervisory and examination staff at Federal Reserve banks and state member banks, comes just a day after payments giant PayPal (PYPL.O) announced it would launch its own stablecoin, a type of cryptocurrency typically pegged to a traditional asset, often the U.S. dollar.
Prior attempts by major mainstream companies to launch stablecoins have met fierce opposition from financial regulators and policymakers. Meta’s (META.O), then Facebook, 2019 plans to launch a stablecoin, Libra, were foiled after regulators raised fears it could upset global financial stability.
For banks to receive a written nonobjection to be able to engage with stabelcoins, banks should demonstrate appropriate risk management, including having systems in place to identify and monitor any potential risks, including cybersecurity and illicit finance threats, according to the Fed.
After receiving a written nonobjection, state member banks engaging in dollar token-related activities will continue to be subject to supervisory review as well as heightened monitoring of those activities, the Fed said.
Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese and Jonathan Oatis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Most meme coins not under SEC jurisdiction: Peirce
Head of the SEC Crypto Task Force and SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce gives her take on meme coins and says the SEC will look at the facts and circumstances, but says most meme coins probably don’t have a home in the current set of regulations.
Bloomberg
Digital assets transactions from Bitcoin, XRP, other cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) must be reported on taxpayer’s tax returns. The Internal Revenue Service says that income from digital assets like Bitcoin and other tokens is taxable.
Millions of Americans use cryptocurrency. About 17% of U.S. adults say they have ever invested in, traded or used a cryptocurrency, according to 2024 findings from the Pew Research Center.
As tax season nears its end, here’s what to know about reporting report crypto such as Bitcoin to the IRS.
The IRS says that individuals who sold crypto, received it as payment, or had other digital asset transactions must accurately report it on their tax return.
This includes convertible virtual currency and cryptocurrency, stablecoins, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). For tax purposes, the agency treats digital assets as property, not currency.
The “Yes” or “No” digital assets question listed on federal income tax returns must be answered correctly:
“At any time during the tax year, did you: (a) receive (as a reward, award or payment for property or services); or (b) sell, exchange, or otherwise dispose of a digital asset (or a financial interest in a digital asset)?”
According to an IRS, you answer “yes” if you received digital assets (crypto, Bitcoin, NFTs) as payment for property or services, from a reward or award, from mining, staking and similar activities, and more criteria.
If you’re unsure how to respond to the digital assets question, the IRS provides a questionnaire to help determine how to answer it. Generally, if you had any digital asset transactions, you check “yes,” but if not, you check “no.”
Everyone who files must answer the digital asset question that appears at the top of these forms:
Taxpayers must report all income related to their digital asset transactions, the IRS notes, regardless of whether they result in a taxable gain or loss. Here’s what the agency recommends when reporting crypto and other digital asset transactions.
The general deadline to file a federal return with the IRS is just days away, on April 15, 2025. For state taxes, the deadline in Ohio is also April 15, with an extension filing deadline of October 15, 2025.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) released a statement following President Trump signing his Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution regarding Decentralized Finance (DeFi). This resolution overturns an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rule on cryptocurrency that would have defined certain developers as “brokers” for reporting and taxation.
Upon the CRA being signed into law, Sen. Cruz said, “This rule would have undermined American leadership on cryptocurrency and I am grateful to President Trump for signing my resolution into law. The resolution is a victory for innovation, privacy, and economic freedom. We are protecting the developers who are building the future of cryptocurrency, making clear that the United States will not cede digital leadership to China, and preserving the ability of Americans to conduct transactions without government interference.”
Sen. Cruz is the leader in the U.S. Senate on advancing cryptocurrency.
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Bitcoin’s price has fallen 25% from a recent all-time high. Is this a buying opportunity or the start of another crypto winter?
Bitcoin (BTC 7.46%) soared to an all-time high of $106,182 per coin in January. With the fourth Bitcoin halving firmly in the rearview mirror and a more crypto-friendly regime in the White House, the original cryptocurrency looked ready to skyrocket like it did in 2020 and 2017.
But it hasn’t worked out that way. Bitcoin is down to $79,200 as of this writing on April 8. That’s a hair-raising 25% price crash, well ahead of the S&P 500 (^GSPC 9.52%) stock market tracker’s 19% drop.
Is this the start of a three-year crypto winter like the one you saw after the 2017 peak, or is it a temporary pullback like in the spring of 2021? Nobody knows for sure, but here’s how I look at the Bitcoin situation today.
Bitcoin has a long history of extreme volatility. The oldest cryptocurrency swung from $785 per coin at the start of 2017 to $19,345 in mid-December. About one year after that, it ended 2018 at $3,880 per coin. The S&P 500 gained a modest 12% over that period, which looks like a horizontal line by comparison:
Bitcoin Price data by YCharts
The recent price swings are actually quite modest from a historical perspective. The cryptocurrency’s daily standard deviance is about 2.7% in 2025. This volatility measure was twice that size in 2017 and just astronomical in 2009 and 2010:
Data source: Coin Codex. Chart by the author.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but this volatility chart shows a couple of helpful trends.
You didn’t come here for the math, and I can’t blame you for distrusting Bitcoin’s charting patterns. Technical analysis is more performance art than financial science, and the chart-based musings above are kinda-sorta an example of that nonsense.
Then again, I’m also basing the discussion on more than the basic chart squiggles. There are reasons for Bitcoin’s four-year cyclicality, because the economic model of producing more coins keeps changing at that pace. Every turn of the wheel is unique, as the economic environment around the crypto sector keeps changing. Still, the halving events make a real difference — hard to predict with pinpoint accuracy, but still useful as a guiding rule of thumb.
And after all of that, I’m convinced that Bitcoin will recover from the recent price cuts. It could take a few months, and there may be more pain to come, but I’ll be shocked if the tide doesn’t turn in the second half of 2025.
This digital currency was designed as a secure long-term storage facility for monetary value, also known as wealth. Strategy (MSTR 23.44%) chairman and co-founder Michael Saylor will talk your ear off on that topic while turning every possible stone to buy more Bitcoin for the company. One of my college-age kids just started her investment journey with an early Roth IRA account, and about 2% of that portfolio holds a popular Bitcoin ETF.
I’m no Saylor-style Bitcoin maximalist, but a small amount of exposure to the original crypto name seems appropriate for most investors. Getting in below $85,000 per coin is a serious discount from just three months ago, making the cryptocurrency about 25% more interesting.
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