Last-minute rebranding wasn’t enough to stop Secretary of State Marco Rubio from cutting off a taxpayer-funded source of income for the “self-anointed arbiters of truth” at Newsguard. As billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter had proved pivotal in exposing the suppression of content and shadow banning rampant on Big Tech platforms, so too had the second election of President Donald Trump appeared crucial in the ongoing fight to preserve the First Amendment.

Paul Atkins has taken the oath to formally become chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which returns Mark Uyeda to his previous role as a Republican Commissioner after three busy months of service as the agency's stand-in chief. Atkins permanently replaces the former chair, Gary Gensler, who the crypto industry had widely seen as its chief antagonist in the U.S. government. But Uyeda and fellow Commissioner Hester Peirce have already put the SEC on a path toward greater acceptance of digital assets, forming a crypto task force, shedding...

Los Angeles-based startup Moonvalley, which is developing AI tools for video creation, has raised a fresh $43 million in venture capital, according to an SEC filing. The filing, which lists 11 unnamed investors, comes roughly a week after Moonvalley launched its first AI video-generating model, Marey. Moonvalley previously raised $70 million in seed funding from backers including General Catalyst, Khosla Ventures, and Bessemer Ventures.

“I’m selling roofs,” Mooney told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Thursday. “I’m a disabled vet from the Marine Corps.” Mooney said the majority of his clients who invested in Woods’ private equity fund, Horizon Private Equity III, got their money back. He said his clients included friends and fellow veterans. Grimberg said Mooney expressed remorse to his former clients and explained his diminished finances during a February court hearing in Atlanta.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is looking to reset its relationship with the crypto industry, even before a permanent chair is confirmed by Congress. The latest effort was Friday's roundtable, hosted at the SEC's headquarters in Washington, D.C. and featuring a dozen attorneys representing different views and positions within the crypto industry. You’re reading State of Crypto, a CoinDesk newsletter looking at the intersection of cryptocurrency and government. Click here to sign up for future editions.

Welcome to ETF IQ, a weekly newsletter dedicated to the $14 trillion global ETF industry. I'm Bloomberg News reporter Emily Graffeo, filling in for Katie Greifeld . The bevy of asset managers that have asked the SEC for permission to create ETF share classes of mutual funds may soon be getting an answer, at least judging by a positive signal this week from Acting Chair Mark Uyeda. “More than two years have passed since the most recent set of exemptive applications for ETF share class relief was filed. I have...

There will soon be a new Wall Street sheriff in Washington – after all the gunsmoke clears out on Capitol Hill, that is. Paul Atkins, a long-time securities lawyer, is expected to pass his confirmation hearing next week as Donald Trump’s chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Nevertheless, my sources with ties to both parties say he faces a potentially noisy proceeding over his pro-crypto stance, and how he will carry out Trump’s plans to deregulate a sector that took intense heat during the Biden years. The problem with...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under a new leadership on Thursday clarified its stance on Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining operations, saying "mining activities" as defined in its statement do not need to register with the Commission, effectively removing them from the list of activities subject to securities laws. The Wall Street regulator went into detail on its views around cryptocurrency mining, and reiterated that PoW mining, which involves miner validation, does not fall under the registration requirements of the Securities Act.