Market Watch | Bitcoin | $10,752 | 7 day: +2.4% | | Ethereum | $359 | 7 day: +4.1% | | All crypto | $345b | 7 day: +4.5% | | Bitcoin dominance | 57.6% | 7 day: -1% | Prices as of 5 p.m. EDT
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 Old ad for the now-defunct PaxForex The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sues PaxForex for failing to register as a futures commission merchant (FCM) and illegally accepting orders for futures products. PaxForex's website has gone offline. - On Sept. 24, the CFTC filed a civil enforcement action against PaxForex, a trading platform operated by Laino Group Ltd., in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
- The CTFC seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, restitution, trading bans, and a permanent injunction.
- The CFTC alleges that Laino Group Ltd.'s PaxForex, registered in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, has allowed unlawful retail commodity transactions since 2018, without CFTC registration as an FCM.
- The CTFC alleges that the platform operated as an FCM and allowed trades in Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), bitcoin (BTC), gold, and silver.
- The complaint also describes how PaxForex leaders marketed their platform to U.S. investors through YouTube and its website, using claims like, "The Best Forex Broker for Beginners in the USA."
- PaxForex acted as counterparty for the transactions, performed and extended credit, and accepted money, securities, or property in exchange for margin trades.
CFTC 
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 Airport at the Exumas, Bahamas Bahamas' central bank digital currency (CBDC) is on track for a mid-October roll-out. We first reported on its CBDC called "Sand Dollar" here. - The Central Bank of Bahamas announced that officials will gradually roll-out the CBDC as a digital equivalent to the Bahamian dollar, which is pegged on a 1:1 basis to USD.
- The Bahamian government will increase the supply of Sand Dollars on Oct. 20 as part of the next phase.
- A pilot of the Sand Dollar went live in the Exumas and Abaco islands in March.
- The central bank is disseminating Sand Dollars through authorized financial institutions (AFIs).
- Officials estimate that the roll-out will occur gradually into the first quarter of 2021. Thereafter, the second phase would focus on government services and public utilities.
- The central bank has indicated that four money transmission businesses and three payment service providers have joined the Sand Dollar project as AFIs.
Central Bank of the Bahamas
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 Sam Patterson presents OpenBazaar in March 2017 Leaders of decentralized marketplace OpenBazaar say they will cease operations without additional investment. Writer's note: After authoring this story, OpenBazaar has tweeted that an anonymous donor will cover its expenses through at least December 2020. - OpenBazaar is an ostensibly decentralized marketplace that has operated since 2014.
- Its core contributor and financial supporter, known as OB1, says that infrastructure expenses have become prohibitively expensive.
- OpenBazaar's peer-to-peer marketplace, initially a spin-off of DarkMarket, has long requested funding from the community.
- OpenBazaar will also remove its Haven wallet and app from Google's Playstore and Apple's App Store on Oct. 1.
- Leaders advise Haven users to immediately withdraw funds from their wallets.
OpenBazaar
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Opium.exchange launches so-called credit default swaps (CDSs) in the form of decentralized finance (DeFi) cryptocurrencies. Writer's note: Swaps are highly regulated financial contracts. In the U.S., most credit default swaps are securities and are governed by the SEC. Even non-security swaps are governed by the CFTC. - Opium.exchange claims to have launched DeFi CDSs tied to the increasingly popular wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), an Ethereum-based token minted by BitGo.
- BitGo's investors include Galaxy Digital and Goldman Sachs.
- Opium.exchange aims to reduce risks related to DeFi products.
- The purportedly decentralized exchange first launched CDSs on Tether (USDT), the world's largest stablecoin, alongside Aave's (LEND) credit delegation feature. The combination aimed to offer "insurance" against non-payment to investors, according to a blog post dated Sept. 6.
- Insurance is also a highly regulated industry in many countries; in the U.S., insurers must register on a state-by-state basis with governmental agencies.
- Marketing materials from Opium.exchange suggest that users can buy wBTC CDSs to protect themselves from insolvency events of wBTC's custodian, or that they can sell the contract to earn insurance premiums while carrying solvency risk.
- CDSs gained popularity in the U.S. during the 2008 Great Recession, as the value of CDSs skyrocketed into the bankruptcy of Washington Mutual, Bear Stearns, Wachovia, and other now-defunct companies.
Coindesk
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Quick Hits: - The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Maker Ecosystem Growth Holdings Inc. and Maker Ecosystem Growth Foundation's recent motion to compel arbitration on Sept. 25. The companies run MakerDao (MKR) and the stablecoin Dai (DAI). The platform is facing a securities fraud lawsuit filed by a former MakerDAO user, Peter Johnson.
- The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has selected ConsenSys for a cross-border payment network study to develop the technology for a CBDC proof-of-concept, according to a blog posted on Sept. 25.
- Chinese mining equipment manufacturer MicroBT announced a partnership with Digital Currency Group's Foundry Digital to increase production capabilities and provide a stable supply chain to the North American market. Foundry will provide financing and procurement services according to a Sept. 25 update.
- China's Ministry of Public Security's International Cooperation Dept. Director-General, Liao Jinrong, suggests gangs running illegal gambling operations use cryptocurrencies for the expatriation of funds. Capital flight is a large problem for the Chinese government; approximately $145.5b flows out of China every year due to gambling-related activities, per a local news report.
- After a two-week trial in Frankfort, Kentucky, a federal jury has convicted Bulgarian national Rossen Iossifov for conspiracy to commit racketeering and money-laundering in the form of cryptocurrencies, according to a press release dated Sept. 28.
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 |  | Written and curated by wide-eyed bitcoin watcher since $1, Aaron Wise. Streaming headline junkie, Associated Press fanboy, eye-strained news terminal watcher, 2017 founder of Cryptocurrency Newsfeed. Temporarily based in Florida while awaiting the construction of cryptopia. |  | | Editor | Edited by Eduardo Garcia in New York. Eduardo is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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