MPs approve Northern Ireland power-sharing deal

Published

1 year ago

February 1, 2024

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MPs have approved the government’s plan to revive the power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland, despite some unhappiness from unionists in Westminster.

The Commons passed the necessary legislation on Thursday afternoon to approve the fresh post-Brexit trading arrangements, and it will now head to the Lords for its final sign off.

The government’s deal to remove routine checks on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland has won widespread applause and is set to herald the return of Stormont following a two-year hiatus.

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As a result, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has written to the Speaker of the Stormont Assembly to confirm the conditions now exist for the return of the power-sharing executive.

He has also indicated he expects the Assembly to sit on Saturday.

The deal – reached after intense talks with the DUP which collapsed the Northern Ireland Assembly in protest at the prime minister’s Windsor Framework – will also mean the Withdrawal Act is amended so EU law will no longer apply automatically in Northern Ireland.

Thursday’s sign off came after the government fast-tracked two pieces of domestic legislation in parliament giving effect to the commitments made in its Safeguarding The Union command paper published on Wednesday.

Sir Jeffrey told the Commons that Northern Ireland had been “placed in a situation where we were separated from the rest of the United Kingdom in key elements of the benefits that ought to have flown from Brexit”, and he saw it as his mission to “repair the damage”.

But with the new agreement, he said his party had secured “real changes” to post-Brexit trade across the Irish Sea.

However, while Sir Jeffrey and other parties welcomed the deal, some other unionist politicians raised concerns.

Former DUP leader Lord Dodds told peers they needed to “realise that there are still many unionists who are deeply worried and concerned that the Irish Sea border… still exists, since many goods coming from Great Britain, British goods coming to Northern Ireland, especially in manufacturing, still need to go through full EU compliance checks, procedures”.

He added there were also worries about “the continued sovereignty, jurisdiction and application of EU laws over large swathes of our economy in 300 areas, to which the Stormont brake doesn’t apply and we cannot make or amend laws within those areas”.

“These are fundamentally important constitutional and economic issues and many unionists still are concerned about these issues,” said Lord Dodds.

Over in the Commons, Sammy Wilson, the DUP MP for East Antrim, said it would still leave EU border posts in Northern Ireland – something that has been disputed.

Speaking in the Commons yesterday, Mr Wilson branded the government “spineless, weak-kneed and ‘Brexit-betraying'”.

And he again raised concerns in today’s debate, claiming some good would still face unnecessary checks.

But Northern Ireland minister – and former leading Brexiteer – Steve Baker rejected his assessment, saying: “We have had eight years of drama.

“For us to arrive at this moment where we have reduced EU law to this extent, and where we have put in place a red lane to protect the legitimate interests of Ireland and the EU, that is something we should all be very proud of after everything we’ve faced and all of the risks that could have put us in a far, far worse position.”

Sir Jeffrey added: “It is work in progress. I do not stand here this afternoon and pretend that we have completed the task.

“I recognise that there are ongoing concerns about how these new arrangements will work in practice. And it will be our task to hold the government to account on its commitments.”

Veteran Tory Brexiteer Sir Bill Cash also raised concerns about “issuing orders from Westminster to Northern Ireland if the people don’t want it”.

And on the other side of the debate, the leader of the SDLP, Colum Eastwood, said his party didn’t support the plan as it was “undermining north-south cooperation” on the island of Ireland, and was “far too much focused on east-west”.

He told MPs: “Moving on from this point, we need to ensure that any future negotiation is done with all parties and both governments so everybody can feel comfortable with the result.”

Sir Jeffrey said “detractors” of the deal had been “very vocal”, but added: “We have restored Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom’s internal market.”

Despite the concerns raised, the plan was passed in the Commons without MPs calling for a vote – known as going through “on the nod”.

Politics

Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

Published

4 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Trump tariffs squeeze already struggling Bitcoin miners — Braiins exec

The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.

While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.

On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.

Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.

Tariffs compound existing mining challenges

Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.

Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.

According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.

“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.

He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.

“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.

Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.

BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”

Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.

“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.

Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.

“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.

As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.

Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange $1.2M for past AML breaches

Published

4 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Malta regulator fines OKX crypto exchange .2M for past AML breaches

Cryptocurrency exchange OKX is under renewed regulatory scrutiny in Europe after Maltese authorities issued a major fine for violations of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws.

Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) fined Okcoin Europe — OKX’s Europe-based subsidiary — 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million) after detecting multiple AML failures on the platform in the past, the authority announced on April 3.

While admitting that OKX has significantly improved its AML policies in the past 18 months, the authority “could not ignore” its past compliance failures from 2023, “some of which were deemed to be serious and systematic,” the FIAU notice said.

OKX was among the first crypto exchanges to receive a license under Europe’s new Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation via its Malta hub in January 2025.

The news of the $1.2 million penalty in Malta came after Bloomberg in March reported that European Union regulators were probing OKX for laundering $100 million in funds from the Bybit hack.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou previously claimed that OKX’s Web3 proxy allowed hackers to launder about $100 million, or 40,233 Ether (ETH), from the $1.5 billion hack that occurred in February.

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading

Published

5 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global 8K for wash trading

Authorities in the US state of Massachusetts continue targeting unlawful cryptocurrency market practices, with a local court fining crypto financial services firm CLS Global.

A federal court in Boston on April 2 sentenced CLS Global on criminal charges related to fraudulent manipulation of crypto trading volume, according to an announcement from the Massachusetts US Attorney’s Office.

In addition to a $428,059 fine, the court prohibited CLS Global from offering services in the US for a probation period of three years.

CLS Global, a crypto market maker registered in the United Arab Emirates, in January pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit market manipulation and one count of wire fraud.

CLS agreed to manipulate the FBI’s “trap token” NexFundAI

The charges against CLS Global followed an undercover law enforcement operation involving NexFundAI, a token created by the FBI as part of a sting operation in May 2024.

CLS Global was among at least three firms that took the FBI’s bait and agreed to provide “market maker services” for NexFundAI, including a fraudulent scheme to attract investors to purchase the token.

In October 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced fraud charges against CLS and its employee, Andrey Zhorzhes. The US securities regulator also filed complaints against two other NexFundAI manipulators, Hong Kong-linked ZM Quant Investment and Russia-linked Gotbit Consulting.

CLS Global’s profile

According to CLS Global CEO Filipp Veselov, the company was founded in 2017 to fill in a “huge gap in the market for high-quality market-making solutions and trading consulting.”

Prior to CLS, Veselov worked at the Russian cryptocurrency exchange platform Latoken, which is advertised as a “global digital asset exchange” and has about 370,000 followers on X.

The CLS team also includes chief revenue officer Pavel Singaevskii, who previously served as sales manager at Stex, a crypto platform that reportedly ceased operations without warning in 2023.

US court fines UAE crypto firm CLS Global $428K for wash trading — *Source:* *CLS Global*

According to CLS Global’s X page, the platform continues operating and has more than 110,000 followers at the time of publication.

How much wash trading is in crypto?

Wash trading is an illegal practice involving artificially inflating trading volume by repeatedly buying and selling the same asset, generating a misleading perception of demand.

According to a January 2025 report by the US blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the crypto market has at least $2.6 billion in estimated wash traded volumes, or just about 2% of total daily crypto trading volumes, as reported by CoinGecko.

Some studies indicate that wash trading makes up a bigger share of the crypto market.

In 2022, the US National Bureau of Economic Research reported that illegal wash trading may account for as much as 70% of average trading volumes on unregulated exchanges.

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