Environment

Countries around the world are passing crypto laws — but the U.S. is the top cop out there

Published

2 years ago

December 31, 2023

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A flag outside the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission headquarters in Washington, Feb. 23, 2022.

Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Regulators around the world from Europe to Asia ramped up efforts to bring about formal laws for digital currencies in 2023 — but it was the U.S. that took some of the harshest legal actions against major players in the industry.

In a year that saw crypto heavyweight Binance ordered to pay more than $4 billion to U.S. authorities and its former CEO’s guilty plea, along with high-profile lawsuits against five crypto companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission, regulators overseas have been equally busy both adopting new legislation — and pushing for more — to rein in the sector’s bad actors.

Here’s the state of play globally for crypto regulation and enforcement in 2023 — and a look at what to expect in 2024.

U.S. tops the list globally for enforcement

The U.S. has proven to be one of the most active enforcers of penalties and legal action against crypto companies this year, as authorities looked to counter bad practices in the industry following the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire — including his FTX exchange and sister firm Alameda Research.

“To be clear, in some cases — like FTX — enforcement was necessary,” said Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Section. “But U.S. enforcement actions against market participants that are more focused on compliance are questionable and the result of the U.S. ‘regulation by enforcement’ approach.”

While many regions have passed laws with potentially tough penalties, the U.S. is still the only country that has actively taken action against large-scale crypto companies and projects. Thus far, the U.S. has led that campaign against crypto firms by enforcement and has, by far, been the most punishing of regulators when it comes to penalties and fines.

“Other countries have a comprehensive regulatory framework in place. We don’t,” Mariotti told CNBC. “As a result, issues that should be determined by legislation or regulation are instead litigated.”

Sam Bankman-Fried set to testify at fraud trial in what experts deem a major gamble for the case

Indeed, in the absence of hard-and-fast rules from Capitol Hill, the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Department of Justice, and Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCen), have worked in parallel to police the space, in a sort of patch-quilt version of regulation-by-enforcement.

Richard Levin, a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough who has represented clients before the SEC, CFTC, and Congress, tells CNBC that these agencies have been some of the most active enforcers around the world concerning the regulation of digital assets and cryptocurrencies.

“These agencies have provided guidance to the industry on how digital assets and cryptocurrencies must be offered and sold, traded, and held by custodians,” said Levin, who has been involved in the fintech sector for 30 years.

“However, much of their work has involved providing guidance to the industry through enforcement actions,” continued Levin.

Since 2019, Justice’s Market Integrity and Major Frauds Unit has charged cryptocurrency fraud cases involving over $2 billion in intended financial losses to investors worldwide.

In its annual report summing up enforcement actions, the CFTC noted that nearly half of all cases in 2023 involved conduct related to digital asset commodities. Meanwhile, the SEC highlighted that 2023 was notable for its enforcement of “crypto-related misconduct, including fraud schemes, unregistered crypto assets and platforms, and illegal celebrity touting.” Since 2014, the SEC has brought more than 200 actions related to crypto asset and cyber enforcement.

The most stringent cases played out in the first half of the year when the SEC accused Binance and Coinbase of engaging in illegal securities dealing in a pair of lawsuits.

Most notably, the SEC alleges that at least 13 crypto assets available to Coinbase customers — including Solana’s sol, Cardano’s ada, and Protocol Labs’ filecoin — should be considered securities, meaning they’d need to be subject to strict transparency and disclosure requirements.

In Binance’s case, the SEC went a step further. In addition to securities law violations, the company and its co-founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao were also accused of commingling customer assets with company funds.

Concerning criminal enforcement, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has been leading some of Justice’s highest-profile crypto prosecutions, including the monthlong trial of Bankman-Fried, the disgraced FTX founder. In November, a jury found the former FTX chief executive guilty of all seven criminal counts against him following a few hours of deliberation.

Crypto leaders consider moving business outside of the U.S. regulatory space

But crypto companies have begun to push back, with some threatening to decamp from the U.S. entirely should this dynamic of policing by enforcement continue.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong condemned the SEC’s actions against the exchange and suggested the company may be forced to move its headquarters overseas. Armstrong later walked back the threat of relocating abroad, but Coinbase and other major crypto firms have still begun to invest more heavily in their international operations.

Crypto market participants nevertheless hope that the spate of legal challenges brought to crypto companies in 2023 will bring clarity in the form of new regulations.

“Clearer regulatory frameworks and stance from regulators globally have provided a sense of legitimacy and security, encouraging more widespread participation in the bitcoin market,” Alyse Killeen, managing partner of Stillmark Capital, told CNBC.

The crypto industry saw the most legislative progress on crypto laws in the U.S. this year, with one of the competing digital asset bills making it past multiple House committees for the first time.

Even as U.S. lawmakers take steps toward crypto legislation, there remains no law in the U.S. tailored specifically for the industry. Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough’s Levin tells CNBC it’s unlikely that we’ll see much progress in a presidential election year and with a divided federal government.

He argues that even without rules on crypto from lawmakers, routine complaints that U.S. regulators are not providing guidance to the industry are without merit.

According to Levin, “The SEC, the CFTC and FinCEN routinely provide informal guidance on the regulation of digital assets and cryptocurrencies.”

“The SEC even went so far as to provide a framework for the analysis of digital assets and cryptocurrencies. The SEC also created a fake digital asset (Hosey Coin) that gave advice to the FinTech community on how not to launch a digital asset,” Levin added.

“Some members of the industry forget the SEC is relying on laws that were written when American football players wore leather helmets, and the SEC must apply those laws to the FinTech industry,” he said.

Despite crypto’s recent fading buzz, Killeen of Stillmark Capital doesn’t expect regulators to become fatigued by crypto in 2024. In the same time year that two of crypto’s leading figures were sent to jail, shares of Coinbase — and prices of digital currencies like bitcoin and ether — have rallied sharply.

Since the start of this year, Coinbase’s stock price has surged more than 400%. Bitcoin and ether, meanwhile, have both roughly doubled in price. That’s as investors anticipate that approval for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund by the SEC may be around the corner.

Coinbase responds to SEC's threat of formal charges

Europe

The European Union looks set to apply its Markets in Crypto-Assets legislation, which is aimed at taming the “Wild West” of the crypto industry, in full force starting next year.

The law, initially proposed in 2019 as a response to Meta’s digital currency project Diem, formerly known as Libra, aimed to clean up fraud, money laundering and other illicit financing in the crypto space, and stamp out the sector’s bad actors more broadly.

Asia

Earlier this year, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, which is recognized for clear fintech and crypto regulations that do not rely heavily on enforcement actions, finalized rules for stablecoins, making it one of the world’s first jurisdictions to do so.

Singapore was notably bruised by the collapse of TerraUSD, a controversial algorithmic stablecoin, in 2022, as well as the fall of Three Arrows Capital, or 3AC. Both Terra Labs, the company behind Terra, and 3AC were headquartered in Singapore.

Singapore’s new framework requires stablecoin issuers to back them with low-risk and highly-liquid assets, which must equal or exceed the value of tokens in circulation at all times, return the par value of the digital currency to holders within five business days of a redemption request, and disclose audit results of reserves to users.

Hong Kong, meanwhile, is undergoing a public consultation on stablecoins and seeks to introduce regulation next year.

The region has been increasingly warming to crypto assets, despite a broader anti-crypto push from China, which banned bitcoin trading and mining in 2021.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, or SFC, launched a registration regime for digital asset businesses earlier this year, with clear regulations for crypto exchanges and funds.

So far, only two firms, OSL Digital and Hash Blockchain, have been handed licenses.

CNBC and Statista announce top 200 global fintech companies

The Middle East and Africa

The United Arab Emirates has emerged as a popular base for the fintech sector more broadly, given its lack of personal income tax, flexible visa policies, and competitive incentives for international businesses and workers.

In 2022, in a bid to lead the virtual assets sector in the Middle East and Africa, Dubai — the UAE’s most populous city — launched VARA, or the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority.

“Dubai and the UAE have created favorable conditions for cryptocurrency businesses, offering specific zones and guidelines for crypto trading,” said Perry.

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis notes that regulators in the UAE were early to cryptocurrency, with Dubai leading the charge when it launched a blockchain strategy in 2016.

“Since then, UAE regulators have remained at the forefront of the industry,” according to a Chainalysis report.

Two years later, in 2018, Abu Dhabi Global Market created the world’s first regulatory framework for cryptocurrency to foster innovation while safeguarding consumers.

Earlier this year, the UAE passed further crypto regulations at the federal level to make it easier for regulators like VARA to police the sector and run economic-free zones.

Environment

The UK wants to unlock a ‘golden age of nuclear’ but faces key challenges in reviving historic lead

Published

13 hours ago

December 6, 2025

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The UK wants to unlock a 'golden age of nuclear' but faces key challenges in reviving historic lead

The Sizewell A and B nuclear power stations, operated by Electricite de France SA (EDF), in Sizewell, UK, on Friday, Jan. 26, 2024. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The U.K. was the birthplace of commercial nuclear energy, but now generates just a fraction of its power from it — big investments are underway to change that.

The country once had more nuclear power stations than the U.S., USSR and France — combined. It was a global producer until 1970 but hasn’t completed a new reactor since Sizewell B in 1995.

Today, the country takes the crown not for being a leader in atomic energy, but for being the most expensive place in the world to build nuclear projects.

Nuclear energy accounted for just 14% of the U.K.’s power supply in 2023, according to the most recent data from the International Energy Agency, trailing its European peers and well behind frontrunner France at 65%.

There is ambition to change that and have a quarter of the U.K.’s power come from nuclear by 2050. Nuclear is considered an attractive bet gas it’s a low-carbon, constant energy source that can act as a baseload to complement intermittent sources like renewables.

“There’s a very clear momentum that has been observed,” Doreen Abeysundra, founder of consultancy Fresco Cleantech, told CNBC. It’s in part due to geopolitical tensions, which pushed energy security and independence onto public agendas.

However, the U.K.’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce called for urgent reforms after identifying “systemic failures” in the country’s nuclear framework. It found that fragmented regulation, flawed legislation and weak incentives led the U.K. to fall behind as a nuclear powerhouse. The government committed to implementing the taskforce’s guidance and is expected to present a plan to do so within three months.

Going big – or small

The U.K. is spreading its bets across tried-and-tested large nuclear projects and smaller, next-generation reactors known as small module reactors (SMRs).

British company Rolls-Royce has been selected as the country’s preferred partner for SMRs, which are effectively containerized nuclear reactors designed to be manufactured in a factory. Many include passive cooling techniques, which supporters argue makes them safer and cheaper.

Nuclear has long come under fire by environmentalists due to radioactive waste and disasters like Chernobyl. Indeed, the U.K.’s first commercial plant Windscale became its worst nuclear accident in history when it melted down in 1957.

On October 10, 1957, Windscale became the site of the worst nuclear accident in British history, and the worst in the world until Three Mile Island 22 years later. A facility had been built there to produce plutonium, but when the US successfully designed a nuclear bomb that used tritium, the facility was used to produce it for the UK. However, this required running the reactor at a higher temperature than its design could sustain, and it eventually caught fire. Operators at first worried that e

Photo: George Freston | Hulton Archive | Getty Images

Most SMRs use light water reactor technology – think of the planned large-scale nuclear plant Sizewell C, just “shrunk down,” said Abeysundra – which is tried and tested.

Other designs, known as “advanced” reactors, are more experimental. For example, those that change the cooling solution or solvent, which is typically used in the process of separating and purifying nuclear materials.

The U.K.’s first SMR will be at Wylfa, in Wales, though no timeline has been given for its completion. The site will house three SMRs and grow over time.

In September, the country signed a deal with the U.S. to enable stronger commercial ties on nuclear power and streamline licensing for firms that want to build on the opposite side of the Atlantic.

However, “the first thing is, there is not, at the moment, a single SMR actively producing electricity under four revenues. They will all come at best in the 30s,” Ludovico Cappelli, portfolio manager of Listed Infrastructure at Van Lanschot Kempen, told CNBC.

While SMRs are a “game changer” thanks to their ability to power individual factories or small towns, their days of commercial operation are too far away, he said. From an investment standpoint, “that is still a bit scary,” he added.

To secure the large baseloads needed to offset the intermittency of renewables, “we’re still looking at big power stations,” added Paul Jackson, Invesco’s EMEA global market strategist.

Nuclear share of total electricity (2023)

IEA

SMRs “probably” do have a role — “they can clearly be more nimble” — but it will take time to roll them out, Jackson said, casting doubt on the U.K.’s ability to be a leader in nuclear, as France and China are already miles ahead.

The U.K. government body Great British Energy-Nuclear is set to identify sites for an additional large-scale plant, having already acquired one in Gloucestershire, in the west of England, as well as the site in Wales.

“We are reversing a legacy of no new nuclear power being delivered to unlock a golden age of nuclear, securing thousands of good, skilled jobs and billions in investment,” a spokesperson for the U.K. government’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero told CNBC.

“Sizewell C will deliver clean electricity for the equivalent of six million of today’s households for at least six decades, and the UK’s first small modular reactors at Wylfa will power the equivalent of three million homes, bringing energy security,” they added.

Innovation in funding

The U.K. has a strong legacy to build on. It pioneered fresh funding mechanisms to make large-scale nuclear projects investible so that they are less reliant on direct government funding, such as a Contract for Differences, which was used for Hinkley Point C.

The mechanism guarantees a fixed price for the electricity generated over a long period of time in order to de-risk investments in an industry that’s known for running over time and budget. Hinkley Point C was initially expected to cost £18 billion (over $24 billion) but the bill has slowly crept up.

“That fixes one part of the equation, the price risk,” Cappelli said of nuclear investments, but the second risk is construction delays.

The Regulated Asset Base (RAB), first used for nuclear at Sizewell C, attempts to reconcile this. Investors get paid from the day they cut a check for a nuclear project, rather than the day it starts operating. Sizewell C is expected to cost £38 billion to build.

Private market investors are increasingly interested in next-generation nuclear as a way to offset soaring energy demands from AI, resulting in a host of young companies trying to build out facilities. Perhaps the most famous is Oklo, a U.S. firm that was taken public by a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman.

Rendering of a proposed Oklo commercial advanced fission power plant in the U.S.

Courtesy: Oklo Inc.

The U.K.’s advanced modular reactor hopeful Newcleo, which uses lead for cooling, moved its headquarters from London to Paris in 2024 — a strategic move to deepen its European footprint. At the time, it told World Nuclear News that it still plans to have a commercial reactor up and running in the U.K. by 2033, but the firm has since scaled back its British efforts.

Meanwhile, Tokamak Energy and First Light Fusion call the U.K. home. They both focus on nuclear fusion, the process of generating power by combining atoms, though this technology is yet to get out of the lab. All of today’s nuclear power comes from fission, where atoms are spit. The U.K. announced £2.5 billion for a world-first fusion prototype in June.

The next generation of engineers

The U.K. faces challenges in access to relevant talent, which is crucial for scaling projects effectively. The country is heralded for its world-class universities and technical know-how, “but that is very much book knowledge,” said Van Lanschot Kempen’s Cappelli.

“What we need is real on-the-ground expertise, and that we are probably lacking for the simple reason that we haven’t been doing it for a very long time,” he said.

For Abeysundra, there’s one area where the U.K. stands out: its mindset. “There is so much knowledge, innovation, and that can-do attitude, which I don’t see as much in other nations,” she said, pointing to the U.K.’s trailblazing role in the Industrial Revolution and establishment of offshore wind energy.

X-Energy’s Kam Ghaffarian on Nuclear Power, AI, and the Space Tech Race

The U.K. government positioned nuclear energy as a key element of the future clean energy workforce in its Clean Energy Jobs Plan released in October, while its national roadmap for nuclear skills, set out in 2024, focuses on apprenticeships, PhDs and upskilling mid-career workers. Industry-led initiatives such as the Energy Skills Passport also support the likes of oil and gas workers to gain green skills.

Securing the supply chain

Perhaps the toughest issue, however, is the supply chain.

Uranium, the fuel used to make a nuclear reaction, is dominated by just four countries, including Russia. Global demand for uranium could rise by nearly a third by 2030 and more than double by 2040, according to the World Nuclear Association, adding further reliance on a select few countries and pressure on developers.

The U.K. government has allocated funding to build up the supply chain and has committed to preventing the import of nuclear fuel from Russia by 2028. Fuel for Sizewell C will come from European or “Western suppliers,” Cappelli noted.

However, for him, it poses the question: How secure is nuclear energy really? “We have to build nuclear power plants, but we need to build the value chain,” Cappelli added.

Workers, expertise and funding are required for nuclear energy, but the supply chain is also key, he said. Otherwise, there will be “the same issues that we had with gas,” a nod to the U.K.’s reliance on just one supplier. Instead of gas, it will be with uranium.

Environment

Tesla announces 2025 holiday update with a few cool features

Published

20 hours ago

December 6, 2025

admin

Tesla announces 2025 holiday update with a few cool features

Tesla has officially announced its 2025 Holiday Update, and this year, the automaker is not using the usually bigger update for any groundbreaking stuff, but there are a few interesting new smaller features.

You will find the release notes in this article.

It’s that time of year again. Every December, Tesla bundles a bunch of features it has been working on into a “Holiday Update” to give owners something to play with over the break.

While previous years have focused on adding major apps like Apple Podcasts or Steam integration, the holiday updates have become gradually weaker over the last few years, and they now concentrate mainly on playful features with smaller tweaks and add-ons.

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Tesla announced the rollout in a post on X today:

Environment

Kia is still offering over $10,000 off its entire EV lineup

Published

23 hours ago

December 5, 2025

admin

Kia is still offering over ,000 off its entire EV lineup

Kia is extending one of its biggest promotions yet, knocking over $10,000 off every EV in its lineup.

Kia knocks $10,000 off EV models

Who said electric vehicles would get more expensive after the $7,500 federal tax credit ended? Kia must not have gotten the memo.

Last month, Kia launched a new promotion, offering a $10,000 customer cash discount for all EVs, including the EV6, EV9, and Niro EV. The discount knocks nearly 25% off MSRP on Kia’s cheapest model, the Niro EV. On the entry-level EV6, it’s 23% off MSRP, while $10,000 off the EV9 is about an 18% discount.

The discounts ended on December 1, but Kia has extended them for at least another month. During its Season of New Tradition sales event, Kia is now offering even more savings.

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The 2025 Kia EV6 and Niro EV are now eligible for up to $11,000 in customer cash, including a $10,000 cash back offer and a $1,000 retail bonus cash discount.

If you’re looking for something a little bigger, the 2026 EV9, Kia’s three-row electric SUV, is available with up to $10,500 in bonus cash.

If you choose to finance, Kia is offering 0% APR for up to 72 months, plus $3,500 APR Bonus Cash on the EV6 and Niro EV. The larger EV9 is available with 0% APR for up to 60 months with a $3,000 APR Bonus Cash offer.

Kia-another-EV-US — The 2026 Kia EV9 (Source: Kia)

The 2025 Kia Niro EV and EV6 are available to lease, starting at $209 and $309 per month for 24 months. The 2026 EV9 is listed with monthly leases starting at $419.

The new sales event comes after Hyundai extended its EV promotions, keeping the IONIQ 5 as one of the most affordable EV leases in the US, starting at just $189 per month.

Kia’s Seasons of New Traditions sales event runs until January 2, 2026. Some deals may vary by region. You can see offers near you by using the links at the bottom.

Interested in test-driving one for yourself? We can help see what’s available in your area. Check out our links below to find Kia and Hyundai EVs near you.