Every bit the United States federal government — acting through its Securities and Substitution Committee — continues to valiantly protect investors and the public interest from the grave dangers of a spot Bitcoin (BTC) substitution-traded fund, one major American city after another is beginning embracing, or at least exploring, the potential of crypto and blockchain technology to improve various aspects of urban center finance, assistants and residents' budgetary well-beingness. Following the lead of Miami, New York, Tampa and Jackson, Tennessee, it is now Philadelphia that is looking into the ways to implement blockchain solutions in city government.

The hope is that a serial of metropolis governments' successful ventures into the crypto space volition eventually make the federal government prefer a more "municipal" perspective.

Below is the concise version of the latest "Law Decoded" newsletter. For the full breakdown of policy developments over the last week, annals for the full newsletter below.

Spot Bitcoin ETF denied

On Friday, post-obit two deadline extensions, the SEC formally disapproved nugget manager VanEck's spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund application that was first filed in March. The regulator maintained that the applicant failed to demonstrate the existence of a "comprehensive surveillance-sharing understanding with a regulated marketplace of significant size related to the underlying or reference Bitcoin assets," which is essential for preventing manipulation and fraud.

In the SEC's view, surveillance-sharing is sufficient in the instance of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's BTC futures market but is not upwards to standard when information technology comes to spot markets that underlie the bulk of CME'southward Bitcoin futures' pricing. A recent alphabetic character from Representatives Tom Emmer and Darren Soto highlights the limitations of the agency's argument well.

Commissioner Crenshaw on DeFi

In an article published in the International Journal of Blockchain Law, SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw shared her thinking on some of the regulatory issues around the domain of decentralized finance, or DeFi. On the almost fundamental level, she believes that DeFi products may exist securities and should exist viewed according to applicable securities laws.

The commissioner'southward key thesis comes down to the need for DeFi market participants to come forrad and voluntarily comply with securities laws, specifically those effectually risk disclosure. She also warned that those who fail to comply could get subject field to SEC enforcement activeness and incur heavy penalties.

CBDC sentry

People's Banking company of Mainland china Governor Yi Gang discussed the plans for the digital yuan'due south cross-border expansion, while the managing managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore revealed a strong retail focus for the nation's prospective central banking company digital currency. Over in Russia, an updated timeline for the release of the digital ruble trial was revealed, with a paradigm platform expected to be set for testing by early 2022. Concurrently, Russian lawmakers have begun preparing the legislative base for the digital currency's nationwide adoption. Meanwhile, the Bank of England gave itself aplenty time to consider all the pros and cons of implementing a digital pound, marking "the 2nd half of the decade" as the earliest fourth dimension for the possible launch.