Crypto Weekly Roundup: A California bill-in-waiting, NFTs on Facebook, CoinSwitch Kuber speaks out on ED search

The week brought Bitcoin back under $20,000 in value on Saturday while Ether once again fell below $1,600. Most of the top fifty cryptocurrencies and tokens by market cap saw weekly losses as well, while the sector deals with more regulatory interferences

This week, crypto investors were focused on California, where the Digital Financial Assets bill was passed on August 30. The bill makes it compulsory for crypto exchanges and companies to be licensed by California’s Department of Financial Protection and Innovation in order to operate in the state.

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The Blockchain Association, a crypto advocacy group, expressed its displeasure and urged lawmakers to reject the bill, stating “licensing provisions are designed to install the same type of onerous licensing and reporting regime that has stunted the growth of the crypto industry.”

The bill stipulates that stablecoins are to be licensed by the state regulator or issued by banks. This has made stablecoin issuers fret. From the U.S. regulatory officials’ point of view, these firms must show enough reserves in USD for their tokens. Popular stablecoins like Tether and USD Coin have market caps in the tens of billions of dollars. The bill’s condition, however, is set to be phased out in 2028.

The bill, which will take effect from January 2025, is now waiting for Governor Gavin Newsom to sign it into law. This is expected to happen before September 30.

Since May 2022, Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms Inc. has been rolling out features that allow its users to post and share NFTs, or what it calls ‘digital collectibles’ on Instagram. This was originally limited to U.S. based creators and collectors. In August, however, the feature was expanded to 100 countries.

On August 29, Meta announced that it was allowing users to post their digital collectibles across both Facebook and Instagram. Some Facebook users have expressed concerns over the security of their digital wallets that hold expensive NFTs.