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Suspect in $190M Nomad hack to be extradited to the US: Report

A Russian-Israeli citizen allegedly involved in the $190 million Nomad bridge hack will soon be extradited to the US after he was reportedly arrested at an Israeli airport while boarding a flight to Russia. 

Alexander Gurevich will be investigated for his alleged involvement in several “computer crimes,” including laundering millions of dollars and transferring stolen property allegedly connected to the Nomad Bridge hack in 2022, The Jerusalem Post reported on May 5.

Gurevich returned to Israel from an overseas trip on April 19 but was ordered to appear before the Jerusalem District Court for an extradition hearing soon after, according to the report. 

On April 29, Gurevich changed his name in Israel’s Population Registry to “Alexander Block” and received a passport under that name at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport the next day.

He was arrested at the same airport two days later, on May 1, while waiting to board a flight to Russia. 

Gurevich allegedly identified a vulnerability in the Nomad bridge, which he exploited and stole roughly $2.89 million worth of tokens from in August 2022.

Dozens of copycat hackers discovered and capitalized on the security vulnerability soon after, leading to a total loss of $190 million.

Gurevich allegedly reached out to a Nomad executive on Telegram

Prosecutors allege that shortly after the hack, Gurevich messaged Nomad’s chief technology officer, James Prestwich, on Telegram using a fake identity, admitting that he had been “amateurishly” seeking a crypto protocol to exploit.

He allegedly apologized for “the trouble he caused Prestwich and his team” and voluntarily transferred about $162,000 into a recovery wallet the company had set up.

Prestwich told Gurevich that Nomad would pay him 10% of the value of the assets he had stolen, to which Gurevich responded that he would consult his lawyer. However, Nomad never heard back from him after that.

Russia, Israel, Telegram, United States, HacksAlleged messages between Gurevich and Nomad’s James Prestwich were shared on X by Israel-based Walla News journalist Yoav Itiel. Source: Yoav Itiel

At some point during the negotiations, Gurevich demanded a reward of $500,000 for identifying the vulnerability.

Related: Do Kwon is in US custody after extradition battle

US federal authorities filed an eight-count indictment against Gurevich in the Northern District of California on Aug. 16, 2023, in addition to obtaining a warrant for his arrest. California is where the team behind the Nomad bridge is based.

The US submitted a formal extradition request in December 2024, the Post noted.

The money laundering charges that Gurevich faces carry a maximum of 20 years, significantly harsher than the penalties he would face in Israel.

Gurevich is believed to have arrived in Israel a few days before the $190 million exploit occurred, prompting Israeli officials to believe he carried out the attack while in Israel.

Magazine: Financial nihilism in crypto is over — It’s time to dream big again

Read more at cointelegraph.com

Florida takes strategic Bitcoin reserve bills off the table

Two Florida crypto bills have been removed from the legislative process in the latest blow to American state-level strategic Bitcoin reserve ambitions. 

Florida’s House Bill 487 and Senate Bill 550 have been “indefinitely postponed and withdrawn from consideration” on May 3, according to the Florida Senate. 

Florida’s legislative session adjourned on May 2 without the passage of these two bills, which would have advanced legislation to establish a crypto reserve for the state. The Senate and House agreed to extend the session until June 6 to address budget plans. 

Lawmakers passed about 230 bills during the session, dealing with things like prohibiting putting fluoride in the water, protecting state parks, and a school smartphone ban, but diversifying state treasury portfolios was not among them. 

Florida takes strategic Bitcoin reserve bills off the tableState strategic Bitcoin reserve legislation race. Source: Bitcoin Laws

HB 487, which was introduced in February, would have allowed Florida’s chief financial officer and the State Board of Administration to invest up to 10% of certain state funds into Bitcoin (BTC).

SB 550 was also filed in February to enable investments of public funds in Bitcoin.

Related: Alabama, Minnesota lawmakers join US states pushing for Bitcoin reserves

Florida has now dropped out of the race to pass state-level crypto investment legislation, along with Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Montana and Oklahoma, which have all seen Bitcoin bills fail to pass House or Senate votes, according to Bitcoin Laws. 

Arizona has two more chances 

It came just days after Arizona advanced its strategic Bitcoin reserve legislation further than any other state, until House Bill 1025 was vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs, who labelled digital assets “untested investments” on May 3.

The Digital Assets Strategic Reserve bill would have permitted Arizona to invest seized funds into Bitcoin and create a reserve managed by state officials. 

The move drew the ire of crypto advocates and Bitcoiners, including entrepreneur Anthony Pompliano, who said: “Imagine the ignorance of a politician to believe they can make investment decisions.”

“Arizona has two more chances to be the first in the nation to establish a Bitcoin reserve,” said Satoshi Action Fund founder Dennis Porter on May 5, citing an article from Fox’s Eleanor Terrett. 

He added that the most likely to pass is HB 2749, which offers a budget-neutral method to fund the reserve using profit from the unclaimed property fund.

Florida takes strategic Bitcoin reserve bills off the tableSource: Dennis Porter

There is also a related bill, SB 1373, which would authorize the state treasurer to allocate up to 10% of Arizona state funds into digital assets. It has yet to reach a final vote.

Magazine: Bitcoin to $1M ‘by 2029,’ CIA tips its hat to Bitcoin: Hodler’s Digest

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Tron says DAO X hack cost victims $45K, Curve Finance also hit

A hacker who took over the Tron DAO X account is estimated to have made around $45,000 in improperly solicited funds, according to a spokesperson from Tron. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph, the Tron public relations team confirmed that on May 2, the Tron DAO account posted a contract address and sent direct messages to solicit payments in exchange for promotional advertising on the Tron account.

“Our security team quickly identified the intrusion and cut off access to the hacker, but we ask the community to continue to be vigilant. We will never ask anyone for payments like this via DM or otherwise,” they said. 

The team said that based on the illicit contract address the hacker posted, the amount improperly solicited appeared to be around $45,000. 

Asked whether the same hacker could be responsible for the supposed New York Post’s X account hack on May 3, the Tron team told Cointelegraph that there “appear to be some similarities” between the two security incidents; however, they also cautioned that the investigation is ongoing and “any definitive connection would be premature.” 

After regaining access, Tron DAO said in a May 2 X update that they suspect the hack resulted from a team member being “targeted in a malicious social engineering attack, which led to their account being compromised.”

Tron says DAO X hack cost victims $45K, Curve Finance also hitSource: Tron DAO

“Even after the perpetrator was logged out and our access restored, they continued contacting others, offering posts from our main account in exchange for payment,” Tron DAO said.

The Tron team is still investigating and says they are in contact with law enforcement. Tron founder Justin Sun also accused crypto exchange OKX of failing to act on a law enforcement request to freeze stolen funds connected to the attack.

OKX founder and CEO Star Xu has publicly denied the allegation, and Sun has removed the original post with the accusation.  

Curve Finance joins list of X account hacks 

Decentralized lending protocol Curve Finance also recently suffered an X account takeover by a bad actor, adding to the growing list of high-profile firms and individuals “silently” accessed by social media hackers. 

In a now-deleted May 5 X post, a scammer posing as Curve Finance shared a link to a CRV airdrop with a weeklong registration period, which some eagle-eyed X users quickly suspected could be fraudulent.

Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov confirmed in a reply to analyst CrediBULL Crypto that it was a bad actor posting sham links so far, “No other account appears to be hacked — the control over X account was just silently taken by someone.”

Tron says DAO X hack cost victims $45K, Curve Finance also hitSource: CrediBULL Crypto

The Curve Finance team has since regained access with the help of a team that included the cybersecurity group SEAL, and found that aside from posting scam links, the hacker also blocked some users who flagged the account takeover, including CrediBULL Crypto.

The cause of the hack has yet to be shared publicly, but in response to a user’s query, the Curve finance team said it’s still “unclear how account” access was taken, and there was “No sign of any client-side compromise.”

Tron says DAO X hack cost victims $45K, Curve Finance also hitSource: Curve FinanceOther high-profile X account hacks

A slew of other high-profile X accounts have also been taken over by bad actors this year. On April 15, a member of the UK’s Parliament, Lucy Powell, had her account taken over to promote a scam crypto token called the House of Commons Coin (HOC).

Crypto data aggregator Kaito AI and its founder, Yu Hu, were the victims of an X social media hack on March 15, when scammers posted that the Kaito wallets were compromised and users’ funds were at risk.

Related: Breaking Bad star’s X account hacked for memecoin scheme

Meanwhile, Pump.fun’s X account was also hacked on Feb. 26 and promoted several fake tokens, including a fraudulent governance token for the platform called Pump.

Magazine: Bitcoin to $1M ‘by 2029,’ CIA tips its hat to Bitcoin: Hodler’s Digest, April 27 – May 3

Read more at cointelegraph.com

Fresh $1B in Tether mints on Tron, closing gap again with Ethereum

The Tron network has drawn closer to regaining the lead from Ethereum in Tether circulation after another big mint by the US stablecoin issuer.

On May 5, Tether minted another $1 billion Tether (USDT) on the Tron network, according to Arkham Intelligence. This brings the total USDT on Tron to $71.4 billion, according to the Tether Transparency report

In comparison, there is currently $72.8 billion USDT circulating on the Ethereum network, so just $1.4 billion more USDT on Tron will see it become the leading network for the world’s largest stablecoin issuer, as it has been previously over the last two years. 

Tron was ahead of Ethereum for USDT circulation between July 2022 and November 2024, but a large $18 billion mint on Ethereum pushed the network ahead again, according to CryptoQuant. 

The third-largest network for USDT is Solana, which has $1.9 billion circulating, and there are smaller amounts on Ton, Avalanche, Aptos, Near, Celo and Cosmos. 

Fresh $1B in Tether mints on Tron, closing gap again with EthereumUSDT circulation on Ethereum and Tron. Source: CryptoQuant

Tether’s total circulation is currently at a record high of $149.4 billion USDT, having increased by 8.6% since the beginning of this year. This gives the firm a commanding stablecoin market share of 61%, according to CoinGecko. 

Related: Tether AI platform to support Bitcoin and USDT payments, CEO says

Its closest competitor, Circle, has a market share of 25% with almost $62 billion USDC (USDC) in circulation.

Stablecoin issuance has surged over the past six months, and they currently represent 8% of the total crypto market capitalization.

In a report in late April, the United States Treasury Department predicted that the stablecoin market could reach $2 trillion by 2028 if regulatory clarity is achieved. 

Stablecoin legislation nearing next vote 

It is widely believed that two key pieces of legislation need to be passed into law in the US to cement the position of stablecoins. 

The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act sets out clear definitions for “payment stablecoins” and reserve rules for stablecoin issuers.

Lawmakers in the US Senate will move forward with a vote on the GENIUS stablecoin bill before May 26, according to reports. 

Meanwhile, the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy (STABLE) Act, which governs the approval and supervision of “federally qualified nonbank payment stablecoin issuers,” is also going through Congress. 

Tether is also planning to launch a US-based stablecoin later this year, with timing dependent on the passing of legislation.  

Magazine: Bitcoin to $1M ‘by 2029,’ CIA tips its hat to Bitcoin: Hodler’s Digest

Read more at cointelegraph.com

Samourai Wallet says feds hid advice that crypto mixer was in the clear

Samourai Wallet’s lawyers allege federal prosecutors suppressed advice that the firm didn’t need a license before they charged executives at the crypto mixing service months later. 

In a May 5 letter to a Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Samourai co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill said prosecutors disclosed that the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) representatives told them six months before they charged the pair “that under FinCEN’s guidance, the Samourai Wallet app would not qualify as a ‘Money Services Business’ requiring a FinCEN license.”

“Shockingly, six months later, the same prosecutors criminally charged Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill with operating just such a business without a FinCEN license,” the lawyers added.

The letter claimed that prosecutors were required to share their discussions with FinCEN over Samourai two weeks after they unsealed charges, making the deadline May 8 last year, but instead “suppressed this information for over a year, disclosing it only on April 1, 2025.” 

Prosecutors charged Samourai CEO Rodriguez and its technology chief Hill with conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and money laundering conspiracy in February 2024, unsealing the charges and arresting the pair in April that year. 

Samourai’s mixing service took crypto from multiple users and blended it together to hide its origins. The government alleged the platform helped with over $2 billion in illegal transactions and facilitated over $100 million worth of money laundering transactions from online black markets and scammers.

Rodriguez and Hill both pleaded not guilty.

In the letter, their lawyers said prosecutors shared details of a call with Kevin O’Connor, chief of FinCEN’s Virtual Assets and Emerging Technology Section in the Enforcement and Compliance Division, and Policy Division staffer Lorena Valente.

According to an email from one of the prosecutors summarizing the call, FinCEN said that “because Samourai does not take ‘custody’ of the cryptocurrency by possessing the private keys to any addresses where the cryptocurrency is stored, that would strongly suggest that Samourai is NOT acting as an MSB [money services business].”

Samourai Wallet says feds hid advice that crypto mixer was in the clearAn excerpt of an email from prosecutor Andrew Chan said FinCEN “did not have a sense” of what it would decide on Samourai. Source: CourtListener

The email said O’Connor and Valente agreed that the government could try to argue that Samourai functionally controlled the crypto, “but that has never been addressed in the guidance, and so it could be a difficult argument” for prosecutors.

Samourai’s lawyers asked the court for a hearing “to determine the circumstances surrounding the Government’s late disclosure” and to administer a remedy.

Samourai to renew dismissal bid if case goes on

Rodriguez and Hill’s lawyers said that, using this latest information, they would again ask for the charges to be dismissed, arguing they lacked fair notice and “understood they were acting lawfully.”

Related: US Treasury’s OFAC can’t restore Tornado Cash sanctions, judge rules 

Prosecutors and Samourai asked the court for more time on April 28 to consider potentially dismissing the case after the Justice Department rolled back its crypto enforcement.

Rodriguez and Hill bid to dismiss the case in early April, arguing it should be dropped as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in an April 7 memo that the Justice Department wouldn’t prosecute crypto mixers for “unwitting violations of regulations.” 

In the latest letter, their lawyers said if the government “were to resist the Blanche Memo’s directive and push forward,” then they would bid to dismiss as “if they were not money transmitters under FinCEN’s guidance, then they could not possibly be prosecuted for not having a license.”

Magazine: Tornado Cash 2.0 — The race to build safe and legal coin mixers 

Read more at cointelegraph.com

New York district gets interim US Attorney as ex-SafeMoon CEO trial kicks off

Acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) John Durham has departed as President Donald Trump’s pick takes control of the office.

In a May 5 notice, the US Attorney’s Office for EDNY said Joseph Nocella will serve as interim US Attorney for the region for 120 days or until a Senate-confirmed nominee assumes the role. Nocella’s appointment came as jury selection began in the criminal trial of Braden John Karony, the former CEO of crypto firm SafeMoon.

It’s unclear how the advancement of Nocella, appointed by US President Donald Trump this month, could affect prosecutors’ case against Karony, who faces charges of securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. Nocella said he intended to help prosecute “narcotics-traffickers, gang members, terrorists, human-traffickers and other criminals.”

The former SafeMoon CEO asked the court in February to consider pushing back the start of the trial based on “significant changes” Trump had proposed affecting US securities laws, potentially impacting his criminal case.

Related: What do crypto users want to happen to Alex Mashinsky?

Though not as well known for criminal cases involving high-profile figures in the crypto industry, the Eastern District of New York has been responsible for overseeing cases against individuals tied to digital assets, including a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint against Hex founder Richard Heart and fraudsters.

Its neighboring district, the Southern District of New York, will oversee the sentencing of former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky on May 8. Jay Clayton, a Wall Street insider and the former chair of the SEC, became the interim US Attorney for the district in April.

Criminal trial to start on May 6

SafeMoon’s Karony, Kyle Nagy, and Thomas Smith were charged in November 2023 for “diverted and misappropriated millions of dollars’ worth” of the platform’s SFM token between 2021 and 2022. Karony has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has been free on a $3 million bond since February 2024.

In a May 5 filing, Karony agreed to have jury selection for his trial proceed under US Magistrate Judge James Cho. District Judge Eric Komitee is expected to oversee the trial starting on May 6.

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight

Read more at cointelegraph.com

New York district gets interim US Attorney as ex-SafeMoon CEO trial kicks off

Acting US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) John Durham has departed as President Donald Trump’s pick takes control of the office.

In a May 5 notice, the US Attorney’s Office for EDNY said Joseph Nocella will serve as interim US Attorney for the region for 120 days or until a Senate-confirmed nominee assumes the role. Nocella’s appointment came as jury selection began in the criminal trial of Braden John Karony, the former CEO of crypto firm SafeMoon.

It’s unclear how the advancement of Nocella, appointed by US President Donald Trump this month, could affect prosecutors’ case against Karony, who faces charges of securities fraud conspiracy, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy. Nocella said he intended to help prosecute “narcotics-traffickers, gang members, terrorists, human-traffickers and other criminals.”

The former SafeMoon CEO asked the court in February to consider pushing back the start of the trial based on “significant changes” Trump had proposed affecting US securities laws, potentially impacting his criminal case.

Related: What do crypto users want to happen to Alex Mashinsky?

Though not as well known for criminal cases involving high-profile figures in the crypto industry, the Eastern District of New York has been responsible for overseeing cases against individuals tied to digital assets, including a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint against Hex founder Richard Heart and fraudsters.

Its neighboring district, the Southern District of New York, will oversee the sentencing of former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky on May 8. Jay Clayton, a Wall Street insider and the former chair of the SEC, became the interim US Attorney for the district in April.

Criminal trial to start on May 6

SafeMoon’s Karony, Kyle Nagy, and Thomas Smith were charged in November 2023 for “diverted and misappropriated millions of dollars’ worth” of the platform’s SFM token between 2021 and 2022. Karony has pleaded not guilty to all charges and has been free on a $3 million bond since February 2024.

In a May 5 filing, Karony agreed to have jury selection for his trial proceed under US Magistrate Judge James Cho. District Judge Eric Komitee is expected to oversee the trial starting on May 6.

Magazine: Crypto wanted to overthrow banks, now it’s becoming them in stablecoin fight

Read more at cointelegraph.com

OpenAI to stay nonprofit, scrap proposed overhaul

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has abandoned plans to become a for-profit company and reaffirmed commitment to its nonprofit status. 

In a May 5 blog post, OpenAI confirmed plans to convert its for-profit business unit into a so-called Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), which would remain under the nonprofit’s control. PBCs are for-profit companies that are legally obligated to prioritize a social mission alongside the interests of shareholders.

The plans mark a reversal for OpenAI, which had previously floated a for-profit conversion involving spinning out the nonprofit entity.

“OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, and is today overseen and controlled by that nonprofit. Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that nonprofit,” the ChatGPT-maker said. 

This can be done without compromising OpenAI’s ability to raise funds for AI development, which “currently requires hundreds of billions of dollars and may eventually require trillions of dollars,” OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, said in a letter to employees announcing the decision.

In 2024, OpenAI took a starkly different view, asserting that the for-profit entity was “necessary” for raising capital to amass the “vast quantities of compute” needed to run AI models. 

Law, Markets, Elon Musk, OpenAIOpenAI’s May 5 governance announcement. Source: OpenAI

Related: OpenAI expects to 3X revenue in 2025 but Chinese AI firms are heating up

Controversial Plans 

OpenAI was originally founded as a nonprofit in 2015, and in 2019 it created a for-profit entity purportedly to help AI developers raise funds. The for-profit unit has remained under the nonprofit’s control since then. 

In 2024, Tesla CEO Elon Musk — one of OpenAI’s cofounders — sued Altman for allegedly “violating terms of Musk’s foundational contributions to the charity,” according to a November court filing. 

In the lawsuit, Musk alleges Altman “assiduously manipulated Musk into co-founding their spurious nonprofit venture, OpenAI,” while secretly planning to convert OpenAI to a for-profit entity. 

Musk has since launched xAI, the developer of AI chatbot Grok, which he said has fallen victim to OpenAI’s allegedly anti-competitive practices.

OpenAI’s leadership expects its revenue to hit $29.4 billion by 2026, Bloomberg reported in March. It forecasts earning revenues of $12.7 billion in 2025.

In March, OpenAI raised $40 billion from Softbank at a $300 billion valuation.

Magazine: Bitcoin to $1M ‘by 2029,’ CIA tips its hat to Bitcoin: Hodler’s Digest, April 27 – May 3

Read more at cointelegraph.com

Good actors were ‘unfairly targeted’ by SEC — OpenSea's CEO

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) enforcement approach on crypto firms has left a lasting “regulatory overhang” within the industry, according to Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea. 

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Finzer said that during Biden’s administration the agency unfairly targeted good actors in the crypto space, including OpenSea. “There’s all sorts of digital assets, you know, you shouldn’t treat them all the same. That’s obvious. But I think the approach that the prior SEC was taking was kind of this, you know, very, very generic.”

The SEC issued a Wells notice — a formal notification that is often a precursor to enforcement action — to OpenSea in 2024, alleging that the NFT marketplace was operating as an exchange for unregistered securities. At the time, Finzer criticized the SEC for taking an approach of “regulation by enforcement” and said that OpenSea was prepared to “stand up and fight.”

With the SEC under new leadership by Chair Paul Atkins, Finzer is hopeful for a more balanced regulatory framework. “Good crypto regulation needs to balance, sort of, protecting consumers but also preserving the ability to innovate,” Finzer said. “It’s not just a one-size-fits-all problem, right?”

Under the Trump administration, the SEC has scaled back enforcement actions against several crypto firms, marking a policy shift in the US after years of enforcement actions led by former Chair Gary Gensler.

For instance, the agency has withdrawn legal challenges against exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, NFT companies Yuga Labs and OpenSea, and decentralized finance protocol Uniswap — most of them opened during Gensler’s term. The SEC has even dismissed its years-long case against Ripple.

During the 2024 US election cycle, the crypto industry widely backed then-candidate Donald Trump, who promised to make the United States “the crypto capital of the planet.” Overall, crypto super political action committees, or PACs, donated over $119 million into the coffers of pro-crypto candidates, helping shape the elections.

Related: Crypto’s debanking problem persists despite new regulations

NFTs: Low trading volume, high innovation

The SEC crackdown on crypto firms had weighed on the markets downturn following FTX collapse in November 2022, driving investors away from crypto products such as nonfungible tokens

Since then, NFT trading volume has plummeted from its 2021 peak, affecting protocols and platforms such as OpenSea. In 2023, the company laid off 50% of its staff amid the market turmoil.

Finzer says the NFT space is still flourishing, with innovation and new applications coming to life — especially in the gaming industry and art collectibles. Despite this, OpenSea has started exploring other areas, seeking to diversify its business to become a destination for all onchain trading beyond NFTs.

“I mean, for the first time in the history of the internet, people have the ability to own digital stuff, right, in a real way,” Finzer said. “[…] you can move them around between different applications and take them with you wherever you go on the internet. And that’s something that’s really powerful.”

Related: OpenSea denies NFT airdrop rumors, calls website a test page

Read more at cointelegraph.com

Trump’s crypto dealings face scrutiny as House Republicans unveil digital asset bill

US President Donald Trump’s crypto businesses are drawing increased scrutiny on Capitol Hill and beginning to influence the progress of US digital asset legislation. As Republican lawmakers in the US House of Representatives unveiled their draft of a digital asset market structure bill on May 5, Democrats prepared for a united response to Donald Trump’s deepening connections with the industry.

Speaking to Cointelegraph on May 5, a Democratic staffer with knowledge of the matter said that House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters planned to lead some members of her party out of a Republican-led hearing discussing digital assets.

The May 6 hearing, entitled “American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets” and led by Committee Chair French Hill, could address draft legislation proposed by Republican lawmakers to establish a crypto market regulatory structure.

In a May 5 statement, Rep. Hill and three top Republicans unveiled the draft bill, which could clarify the treatment of digital assets by the US’s financial regulators: the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Hill and others echoed some of Trump’s talking points on crypto — e.g, making the US a “crypto capital of the world” — suggesting deference to the president’s previously announced policies.

The draft bill included a provision requiring the SEC and CFTC to issue joint rules defining digital commodities. According to the text, transactions involving digital commodities “shall be deemed not to be an offer or sale of an investment contract” as long as the purchaser did not have “an ownership interest or other interest in the revenues, profits, or assets.”

According to the Democratic staffer, rules required all members of the House Financial Services Committee to agree to move forward with the digital asset hearing, suggesting that Waters intended to block the Republican-controlled event and conduct a shadow hearing to explore Trump’s and his family’s ties to the crypto industry. At least nine Democrats have reportedly considered a similar move to oppose a proposed stablecoin bill in the Senate.

Calls for impeachment, criticism from both sides

Some members of Congress have already called for Trump’s impeachment after he offered the opportunity for some of his top memecoin holders to tour the White House and attend a private dinner. In addition to the memecoin, the president’s family has backed the firm World Liberty Financial, which recently launched its own stablecoin, and an Abu Dhabi-based investment firm used the USD1 stablecoin to settle a $2 billion investment in Binance.

Related: US Senator calls for Trump impeachment, cites memecoin dinner

Waters, according to the staffer, requested that Hill and Republicans amend any proposed legislation to explicitly prevent potential conflicts of interest in which Trump could personally enrich himself through crypto ventures.

Cointelegraph reached out to Hill’s office but did not receive a response at the time of publication. The Arkansas lawmaker reportedly said in March that the Trump family’s involvement in the crypto industry makes related legislation “more complicated.”

Republican lawmakers in the United States currently have control of the House, Senate, and presidency. At least two senators supportive of Trump have criticized his memecoin dinner, hinting that the president was selling access to his office. It’s unclear at the time of publication who among the memecoin holders could attend the May 22 dinner in person.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

Read more at cointelegraph.com