Advertisement
Singapore markets closed
  • Straits Times Index

    3,224.01
    -27.70 (-0.85%)
     
  • S&P 500

    5,248.49
    +44.91 (+0.86%)
     
  • Dow

    39,760.08
    +477.75 (+1.22%)
     
  • Nasdaq

    16,399.52
    +83.82 (+0.51%)
     
  • Bitcoin USD

    70,670.19
    +378.13 (+0.54%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • FTSE 100

    7,952.37
    +20.39 (+0.26%)
     
  • Gold

    2,229.60
    +16.90 (+0.76%)
     
  • Crude Oil

    82.39
    +1.04 (+1.28%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.1960
    0.0000 (0.00%)
     
  • Nikkei

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     
  • Hang Seng

    16,541.42
    +148.58 (+0.91%)
     
  • FTSE Bursa Malaysia

    1,530.60
    -7.82 (-0.51%)
     
  • Jakarta Composite Index

    7,288.81
    -21.28 (-0.29%)
     
  • PSE Index

    6,903.53
    +5.36 (+0.08%)
     

CFTC regulators discuss concerns on crypto, memecoin prices surge following Twitter logo change

Yahoo Finance crypto reporter David Hollerith joins the Live show with an update on cryptocurrency news, including comments by CFTC regulators and the jump in the price of dogecoin after Twitter changed its logo to a Shiba Inu.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: Bitcoin surging over the last month, really since the start of the year. In just the last month, though, up more than 25% as the cryptocurrency seems to be regaining some of that momentum that it had lost last year. And as the price action has picked back up, so have also the discussions about crypto regulation. Our David Hollerith spent the day over at a crypto conference where regulation was in focus. David, what did you learn about that and just the push here that we could potentially see from regulators?

DAVID HOLLERITH: Yeah, I mean, back to your original point, though, it's a really interesting dichotomy between crypto prices and how regulation is in the US. Today, at the Chainalysis Link's conference, so Chainalysis is a blockchain transactions analytics firm. So they do-- they cover basically crime in that area. They interface with regulators a lot. We had a regulator at the federal and state level. So Christy Goldsmith Romero, who's a CFTC commissioner, she came in and spoke onstage today.

ADVERTISEMENT

And effectively, what she brought up is just the fact that the industry at this point is at a loss of trust. I mean, this is something we've been talking about for months since FTX. But she's kind of underlined that's still the position. And the CFTC is sort of known to be seemingly more friendly than other US agencies to crypto.

And she laid out that it's still effectively like lessons learned from FTX is basic things like setting up internal controls at companies, making sure there aren't any conflicts of interests. She also pointed to the fact that they work with other US State and federal regulators and investigations. And she said kind of a little forebodingly that we should probably expect more of those.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, and David, you mentioned the fact that there's been a loss of confidence in crypto. And also even with what's just played out in the banking sector over the last several weeks with the collapse of Silvergate, you also had Signature Bank as well and the tie there with crypto. There's been some talk about that out there on the Street. Was there any rumors or any talk about that at the conference today?

DAVID HOLLERITH: Yeah, so Adrian Harris, who's the superintendent for the New York Department of Financial Services, essentially the New York regulator that decided to see Signature, and she had spoke out actually about comments that have come out about whether or not shutting down Signature had something to do with their crypto exposure. And she had sort of pointed out even though Signature is known as a crypto-friendly bank, that they also actually had pretty diversified deposits. And she said that it was ultimately a matter of liquidity, which was the issue.

And she said the idea that it was some kind of like target towards crypto, she called it silly and also ludicrous. So that's as much as we have from that. We've heard the department say just as much, but yeah, so.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, and David, when we talk about some of the moves that we've seen this week, just real quick, some of the activity and some of those meme crypto plays-- and I'm talking about the Dogecoin because we have Elon Musk turning the icon here to the Doge dog, and that excited some investors. And we saw Dogecoin was one of the top trending tickers on Yahoo Finance earlier this week. It has been some time since then. What do you make of that and just maybe the interest that we have seen within that coin this week?

DAVID HOLLERITH: Yeah, I mean, it's tough to explain Dogecoin in that, like, if you're looking for like fundamental analysis, like a stock--

SEANA SMITH: There's not much.

DAVID HOLLERITH: --like, you're not going to find anything like that. But industry-- like, crypto analysts who I talked to, actually, they say it's an honest meme coin, which I guess is the translation that as opposed to these other things, it's transparently doesn't necessarily have value. But there also aren't any weird kind of things that investors can't see about it is sort of how they phrase it. But not to say that it's by any means safe. All cryptocurrencies are tough to understand as far as investing goes. But as far as the meme coins goes, it's clearly one of the largest, and many people say it's the honest one, so.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, well, I don't know. Elon Musk driving a lot of the action there in the interest of Dogecoin. David Hollerith, great to have you on set.

DAVID HOLLERITH: Yeah.