"DOJ will no longer prosecute cryptocurrency fraud" is clickbait and not what the Todd Blanche memo says.
They will still go after the Sam Bankman-Frieds:
>Prosecutors shall prioritize cases that hold accountable individuals who (a) cause financial harm to digital asset investors and consumers; and/or (b) use digital assets in furtherance of other criminal conduct...
But seem to be intending to deal with whether it is ok to do things like issue trump token by setting regulations rather than prosecuting companies after the event. Which is not wholly a bad idea.
Memo text here: https://archive.ph/Td0Fn
I try to view things like this from the other perspective and wonder just why so many people still view this person like he's the common man's savior. I think I'm cognitively dissonance-ing myself from possibly all the cognitive dissonance I'm surrounded with.
The title of the article on the website is misleading and actually untrue.
The memo did not say “no longer targeting fraud”- it said that it was no longer targeting individuals and exchanges for regulatory missteps. The theme of the memo is “we’re not going to use mountains of regulations written for non-crypto regulation to go after crypto exchanges”, which is in line with a general regulatory themes of the Trump administration to avoid “lawfare” type activities and reduce regulatory burdens.
In fact, the memo specifically said (according to the article, near the end) that the government would focus their efforts on fraud against crypto investors.
Now you might or might not agree with these goals, and you might or might not support the Trump administration, and you might or might not like Trump, but the article headline was at odds with the article content and with the DoJ memo.
> prior Administration used the Justice Department to pursue a reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution
What was the idea before? It wasn't necessarily illegal but they prosecuted it anyway?
> Executive Order 14178 requires the Justice Department to prioritize investigations and prosecutions that involve conduct victimizing investors, including embezzlement and misappropriation of customers’ funds on exchanges, digital asset investment scams, fake digital asset development projects such as rug pulls, hacking of exchanges and decentralized autonomous organizations resulting in the theft of funds, and exploiting vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Such enforcement actions are important to restoring stolen funds to customers, building investor confidence in the security of digital asset markets, and the growth of the digital asset industry.
I guess before anyone using these crypto services was a target for prosecution and now they are not, just by the virtue of using them.
A few comments here have hinted at this: we don't need to have a debate about penalizing platforms for the fraud of the users, everyone agrees that's problematic. The reason this directive confuses me is because very often the fraudsters are the platform runners themselves.
> Instead of policing crypto platforms and exchanges, Trump’s DOJ will “focus on prosecuting individuals who victimize digital asset investors, or those who use digital assets in furtherance of criminal offenses such as terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, organized crime, hacking, and cartel financing.”
Wonder if this hints at possibly reducing or relaxing KYC rules also?
also, the always thorough Molly White https://www.citationneeded.news/issue-81/
Do we think FTX would have been prosecuted if Trump were in office? Note that if FTX were able to hide its fraud for a few more months, they would have been able to bounce back and then some. Not saying that makes it better or worse, but a few months of questionably legal delay tactics would probably go over fine these days (is my 2 cents).
And how is this a good thing?! This goes massively against crypto to a massive level - now less people will want to touch it even with a 10-foot pole!
lol anyone know if this might mean that americans will get access to Binance (specifically not Binance US)?
what an amazing investment! cryptocurrency criminals donated just a few hundred million to Trump's "campaign" (primary money laundering op), and they get a license to do infinity crime against the government and civilians.
corruption has the best ROI around, by fucking far.
Purely about helping Russia and North Korea.
They must be laughing so hard how easily it is to manipulate Trump to do their bidding.
How does separation of powers work in the US? could Trump decide not to prosecute let say financial fraud in general?
[flagged]
It's so painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that his whole character reeks of fraud. How this news could ever come as a surprise to anyone is a testament to how poorly our mainstream and social media outlets have informed the citizenry.
this is good for Bitcoin
If you didn't see this coming when he launched a memecoin then I don't know what to tell you.
> Per Blanche’s memo, which was circulated on Monday, the Justice Department is dropping litigation and enforcement actions “while President Trump’s actual regulators do this work outside the punitive criminal justice framework.”
Elon Musk and Russell Vought have been trying to kill the CFPB and the SEC is toothless now so what financial regulators is he talking about?
In preparation for the kleptocrats to loot various pools of money from the government.
Can SBF be out now?
Turns out the real rug pull was on November 5.
[flagged]
WaPo Gift Link: https://wapo.st/4cpZiWJ