News Roundup — Crypto bills pass congressional committee in ‘huge win’ for US crypto

Major news stories this week;

1. Crypto bills pass congressional committee in ‘huge win’ for US crypto
2. Worldcoin's Mainnet, WLD Token Goes Live
3. MakerDAO Looks to Ignite Growth for $4.6B DAI Stablecoin With Up to 8% Reward
4. Singapore High Court rules crypto personal property, compares it to fiat money
5. SEC adopts cyberattack disclosure rules, listed crypto firms included

Story Summaries;

1. A key United States House panel has approved a pair of bills that could finally deliver some regulatory clarity to crypto firms — including clarifying the differences in jurisdiction between the U.S. securities and commodities regulators. On July 26, the majority of U.S. lawmakers voted in favor of the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, as well as the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act. The House Financial Services Committee approved the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act in a 35-15 vote, which would establish rules for crypto firms on when to register with either the Commodity Futures Trading Commission or the Securities and Exchange Commission.
2. Sam Altman’s crypto project Worldcoin launched its WLD token and mainnet, the firm said Monday on Twitter. Altman is the co-founder of Open AI, the company behind ChatGPT. Developers will now have access to the Worldcoin software development kit (SDK) to create tools and apps using the World ID, the project's identity protocol. In order to be fully verified, users must scan their irises using Orb, a tailor-made device that uses the scan to create a unique identifier, but doesn't process or store any related data locally, according to the company.
3. MakerDAO, one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols, is taking steps to spur demand for its $4.6 billion DAI stablecoin by boosting yields for token holders. In a governance vote concluded on Thursday, the protocol’s community favored introducing the so-called Enhanced DAI Savings Rate (EDSR), which may temporarily increase the interest rate DAI holders can earn to as high as 8%. The action comes as the circulation of Maker’s dollar-pegged stablecoin has shrunk by a third from $6.9 billion in a year, according to Dai Stats. The broader stablecoin market, a key infrastructure and source of liquidity in the crypto ecosystem for trading and transactions, is in a downtrend, sinking to $127 billion from nearly $160 billion a year ago.
4. Cryptocurrency is property capable of being held in trust, Judge Philip Jeyaretnam of the High Court of Singapore ruled on July 25. The judge said he didn’t see any difference between crypto, fiat money or shells as long as all those objects, physical or not, share value created by mutual faith in them. He rebukes the common suspicion of crypto not having any “real” value, reminding that value is “a judgment made by an aggregate of human minds.”
5. Public companies in the United States, including listed crypto firms, will be required to disclose any major cybersecurity incidents within a four-day time limit under new rules adopted by the United States securities regulator. The new rules will apply to any publicly listed company in the United States. In the crypto industry, publicly listed crypto firms include Coinbase (COIN), Marathon Digital (MARA), Riot Blockchain (RIOT) and Hive Digital Technologies (HIVE).

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And that’s all for last week’s news! Wishing you a great week ahead!

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