Today in Crypto: UK Gov ‘Firmly Disagrees’ with Treasury on Regulating Crypto as Gambling, UK FCA to Open Digital Sandbox on August 1, Push Protocol Launches Decentralized Audio & Video Streaming App

Get your daily, bite-sized digest of cryptoasset and blockchain-related news – investigating the stories flying under the radar of today’s crypto news.
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Regulation news

• The United Kingdom government rejected a proposal made by the UK Treasury saying that it “firmly disagrees with the Committee’s recommendation to regulate “retail trading and investment activity in unbacked cryptoassets as gambling rather than as a financial service”.” It argued that the Committee’s proposed approach would risk creating misalignment with international standards and approaches from other major jurisdictions including the EU, and potentially create unclear and overlapping mandates between financial regulators and the Gambling Commission.
• The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) plans to provide access to a digital sandbox and enable experimentation through proof of concepts to see how companies’ products perform at an early stage of development. According to the press release, following 2 successful pilots, the digital sandbox will be made available permanently on August 1, “opening up the platform to an even broader range of innovative businesses, start-ups, and data providers.” It will also help deliver the regulator’s new secondary objective to support economic growth and international competitiveness, it said.
• Kuwait’s main financial regulator, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), prohibited practically all operations involving cryptocurrencies to combat money laundering and comply with the Financial Action Task Force‘s (FATF) global recommendations for cryptoassets. It forbade the use of crypto for payments or investment, placed an “absolute” ban on digital asset mining, prohibited the recognition of crypto as a decentralized currency, and warned the public that companies are not allowed to provide crypto-related services.

DeFi news

• Web3 communication network Push Protocol announced the public launch of Push Spaces, described as “the first decentralized audio and video streaming application, built on top of Push Protocol’s existing communication ecosystem of 90k subscribers across 700+ applications and three blockchains.” Per the press release, Push Spaces is currently available for audio streaming, with video streaming coming soon. 

Crime news

• Canadian police issued a public warning after noticing a possible trend of high-value crypto investors being robbed in home invasions. “It appears someone is targeting these victims for cryptocurrency, and we believe this public warning is necessary in the interest of public safety,” said a Staff Sergeant. “The suspects appear to know the victims are heavily invested in cryptocurrency, know where they live, and are robbing them in their own homes,” another added. Investigators did not provide specific details on any of the incidents, but they noted that large amounts of cryptocurrency were involved.
• Police in Jingmen, Hubei province, China, said they froze multiple accounts with a combined value of $160 million in an online gambling case in which digital currencies were widely used to avoid regulation, according to the South China Morning Post. In a separate case, police in the central province of Shanxi said they busted a money-laundering case involving 380 million yuan worth of USDT. 

Exchange news

• Bitget announced its plans to expand into the Middle East region, which will involve hiring 60 new staff members. Per the press release, it has already begun exploring license applications in order to operate in target Middle East markets. Among the countries the exchange is intending to explore are Bahrain and the UAE, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Ras Al Khaimah. The platform plans to set up a regional headquarter and recruit team members who will be assigned various mid-office and back-office functions, it said.