India’s telecom regulator has ordered service providers to halt all promotional calls from unregistered numbers immediately and to blacklist these callers in response to a growing number of spam and phishing scams. These fraudulent calls often involve scammers posing as representatives of well-known companies like FedEx and Blue Dart to steal sensitive financial information by sending phishing links to retrieve lost packages.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) emphasised that all promotional calls from unregistered telemarketers must be stopped immediately. Unregistered callers will face blacklisting for up to two years. Telecom service providers must report their actions against scam callers on the 1st and 16th of each month to ensure compliance and combat this issue effectively.
The US Department of Justice is exploring various options, including potentially breaking up Alphabet’s Google, after a recent court ruling found the tech giant guilty of illegally monopolising the online search market. The ruling was considered a significant victory for federal authorities challenging Big Tech’s dominance, which determined that Google spent billions to establish an illegal monopoly as the world’s default search engine.
Among the remedies the DOJ considers are forcing Google to share data with competitors and implementing safeguards to prevent the company from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products. Discussions have also included the possibility of divesting key assets such as the Android operating system, the AdWords search ad program, and the Chrome web browser.
Why does this matter?
The following case is part of a broader effort by federal antitrust regulators, who have previously taken action against other tech giants like Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Apple, accusing them of maintaining illegal monopolies. Alphabet and the DOJ have not yet commented on the ongoing deliberations.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against cryptocurrency company NovaTech and its founders, Cynthia and Eddy Petion, accusing them of fraudulently raising over $650 million from investors worldwide. The SEC claims that the Petions assured investors their funds would be secure, with promises of profits from the outset. However, the lawsuit alleges that the couple used new investments to pay off earlier investors and commissions to promoters while diverting millions for personal use. The scheme reportedly continued for four years until NovaTech collapsed in May 2023.
The legal dispute follows a separate lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James in Manhattan, where the fraud was estimated to exceed $1 billion. Both regulators have labelled the operation a pyramid scheme, noting that NovaTech enticed victims through religious appeals on social media, often using platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp to target Haitian-American communities. Cynthia Petion was known to portray herself as the ‘Reverend CEO,’ suggesting NovaTech was part of a divine plan.
The SEC has also charged six NovaTech promoters with fraud, accusing them of continuing to recruit investors despite numerous warning signs, such as delayed withdrawals and regulatory actions in the US and Canada. One promoter, Martin Zizi, has agreed to pay a $100,000 civil fine, though his legal representation has not commented.
The lawsuits in Miami and New York seek restitution for the defrauded investors and civil penalties. The Petions, believed to reside in Panama, have yet to be located for comment, and no legal representatives have been identified. Both cases highlight the significant legal challenges NovaTech faces as authorities seek accountability for the alleged misconduct.
The SEC’s case against NovaTech is being heard in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The lawsuits aim to recover losses for investors and impose financial penalties on those involved in the fraudulent scheme.
Polish billionaire Rafal Brzoska and his wife plan to take legal action against Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, due to fake advertisements circulating on these platforms. These ads falsely feature Brzoska’s image and spread misinformation about his wife. The couple has yet to decide where to file the lawsuit, which is part of a broader effort to hold Meta accountable for allowing such ads to persist even after being alerted to the issue.
Brzoska, known for founding the Polish parcel locker company InPost, stated that he first notified Meta about the problem in early July but has yet to see a resolution. He and his wife are considering various legal jurisdictions, including possibly filing a lawsuit in the United States if they don’t see action in Europe. They intend to demand that Meta cease profiting from misleading content that infringes on their rights and seek substantial compensation, which they plan to donate to charity.
The situation has prompted action from the President of the Personal Data Protection Office in Poland, who recently mandated that Meta Platforms Ireland Limited stop displaying false advertisements featuring the Brzoskas on Facebook and Instagram in Poland for three months.
A Meta spokesperson responded that the company removes false ads when discovered and collaborates with local authorities to combat scammers. They acknowledged the ongoing challenge of scammers who constantly adapt to evade detection, reaffirming their commitment to working with businesses, local governments, and law enforcement to address these issues.
Apart from the cryptocurrency-focused media, not many US news outlets have been providing this newsworthy coverage. The United States is home to more than 100 top cryptocurrency companies. In particular, the USA is home to the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, which is a publicly traded company. Coinbase reported a USD 273 million profit in the fourth quarter of 2023. For the full year of 2023, it earned USD 95 million on USD 3.1 billion in revenue, while in 2022, it posted a loss of USD 2.6 billion. Apart from Coinbase, Marathon Mining, the largest US cryptocurrency mining operation, reported a staggering revenue increase of 229% to a record USD 387.5 million in 2023 from USD 117.8 million in 2022. Several policy proposals are before policymakers in the USA, trying to tackle issues related to the industry.
In late July 2024, Nashville, Tennessee (USA) was the stage of the largest annual bitcoin gathering. The Bitcoin Conference 2024 had one speaker that everyone awaited with anticipation. Republican Party candidate and the former US President Donald J Trump is the first high-end political figure in the USA who agreed to address the bitcoin crowd. Trump’s appearance was announced a couple of weeks before, and at that very moment the issue of cryptocurrency and the surrounding industry slipped into the main discussion among the candidates for the November US elections.
Back on the green
So, the industry is back on the green, regulation is discussed in the US Senate and Congress and the mining industry is growing. How come that industry is not discussed that much on the main political stage?
In Nashville, everything was ready for Trump’s appearance. The former president’s campaign trail advertised his appearance as one of the highlights of his July campaign. Anyhow, the crowd gathered at the Bitcoin Conference is not politically homogeneous. There are people on the complete opposite side of Trump’s proposed political spectrum. In the past, US cryptocurrency companies were one of the top contributors to the US Democratic Party (most prominently, Sam Bankman-Fried, now convicted, former CEO of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX).
Crypto vs bitcoin
Before I continue, let me give you a brief explanation. It is important, trust me.
In short, the cryptocurrency industry is divided into two strongly opinionated teams standing on opposite sides. Bitcoin adopters would almost never call themselves crypto enthusiasts. They consider other cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency exchanges, and the entire idea of ‘blockchain technology changing the world’ to be false. For (true) bitcoiners, NFTs, meme coins, microtransactions, enormous overnight profits, and other ‘miraculous’ stories were considered nothing more than elaborate schemes for tricksters and scammers willing to sell innocent investors a story of the world-changing technology. And to be fair, that narrative kind of proved to be true. For years, US financial regulators have been waging war on cryptocurrencies and online cryptocurrency exchanges as ‘unregulated securities’ businesses. The US SEC has already won many cryptocurrency-related court cases for scam and fraud charges. On the other hand, the same regulatory agency has made a clear distinction between bitcoin and others. The SEC has officially stated that bitcoin cannot be considered a security but rather a commodity and that they will not pursue any bitcoin holders or bitcoin-only companies (in a court case back in 2019). This is thought to be due the decentralised nature of bitcoin. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, bitcoin does not have a CEO, headquarters, or hire anyone to work on its update. Bitcoin is simply an open-source protocol that handles digital value as unique information. Therefore, it cannot be defined as ‘a promise of profits’ to investors, which is the main argument of the famous Howey Test, a metric that has been used by the SEC to determine the scope of its work since the 1946 Supreme Court case.
This is the first point of difference recognised by regulators and one of the main arguments for Bitcoin as digital gold. Bitcoin can be used at a settlement level to create a future ‘digital gold standard’ mimicking the now abandoned ‘gold standard’ for the global economy. Bitcoiners argue that other cryptocurrencies and the industry as a whole have achieved a huge value transfer but fail to see any value creation (thus far). Court decisions worldwide have confirmed quite similar things.
Energy consumption in cryptocurrency
The second point of major disagreement between the two sides (crypto and bitcoin) is the way the industry is spending energy. Energy is the most frequently mentioned issue in the media coverage of cryptocurrency developments. You have heard and read numerous reports on the massive amount of energy used to mine (create) cryptocurrency and 99.5% of that energy is spent in bitcoin mining. The proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm, used in the bitcoin network for security reasons, requires miners to spend energy creating new bitcoins. Specialised mining equipment is often located near big power plants, and the pursuit of cheap electricity is the major driver of the industry. In contrast, the crypto industry, apart from bitcoin, has created a solution for such energy demand with the non-energy consuming Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm for network security. Therefore, the crypto industry is now pointing to bitcoin as the sole reason why regulators are thinking about cryptocurrencies, as the green agenda worldwide becomes dominant. A couple of US legislators from the Democratic Party have filed several motions for a statewide ban on bitcoin mining as an energy demanding industry. As a counter-argument, bitcoiners say that the actual amount of energy spent for bitcoin creation gives it its power. In other words, energy spent in creation gives bitcoin an intrinsic value similar to physical gold.
It is important that these distinctions have been clarified in order to understand the scope of Trump’s address. With that, back to Nashville.
One of my friends who was in the audience told me that people who normally are not interested in politics were ecstatic and wanted to hear the first address of the US president to the bitcoin crowd. President Trump took the stage at the Bitcoin Conference 2024 and gave the crowd all they wanted to hear, and a bit more. He said that the AI and bitcoin industries are similar as they need the same thing: electricity. He made a promise to the United States to ramp up electricity production by a couple of folds, clearly setting his agenda on the opposite side of Democrat’s calls for mining bans. We want all bitcoins in the world to be created in the USA, he said. ‘We will be creating so much electricity that you’ll be saying: Please, please president, we don’t want any more electricity…’
He immediately followed with the promise to relieve Mr Gary Gensler, the current chairman of the US SEC. Actually, he would do it on his first day in the office. He promised that the bitcoin and crypto industry would stay in the USA. But one of the most dazzling promises for all bitcoiners attending was his announcement that the USA might start accumulating bitcoins as for future global trade. The crowd was overwhelmed, as he confirmed that the idea of bitcoin as digital gold had finally received approval from the top policymaker, let alone the former (and possibly future) president of the United States. Later during the conference, plans were elaborated on how such a thing can be done. If true, this could indeed play a significant role in the worldwide adoption of bitcoin as a global store of digital value. Having in mind that the future global economy will certainly be digital, such a thing is actually quite possible and logical. Ultimately, it is a matter of political will to create such a strong global independent currency not related to the reigning central banking system. ‘Bitcoin will probably overtake gold (market), there was never anything like it… it’s not only a marvel of technology but the miracle of (human) corporation.’ To back that up, Trump reiterated that he would halt the development of the US Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
Trump finished with the best wishes for all: ‘We will make America and bitcoin bigger, better, stronger, richer, freer, and greater than ever before… Have a good time with your bitcoin and your crypto and everything else you’re playing with.’
The moment he said it, the crowd suddenly became colder. They realised that he was not aware of the distinction between bitcoin and crypto. Actually, he might just populistically say what crowds want to hear, and the moment the script was taken off the teleprompter, he could not tell the difference between the two.
This was for sure the event that launched issues surrounding bitcoin and cryptocurrency in the US elections race, as more and more young voters are getting to the polling stations and the idea of the independent global currency becomes not so utopian and high-end tech issue. In any case, we will have to wait and see which of those promises are actual future policies and which part plays the role of enchanting the masses. Open-source software, energy consumption, and consumer protection will be discussed in detail in the future.
A US court has ordered the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX to pay $12.7 billion in relief to its customers. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced that the order resolves a settlement between the CFTC and FTX, which collapsed in late 2022 after misappropriating customer deposits for risky investments. FTX has committed to a bankruptcy liquidation plan, promising 100% recovery for its customers based on the value of their accounts at the time of the bankruptcy filing.
The CFTC settlement ensures that the government’s lawsuit against FTX will not reduce the funds available to customers, as the CFTC has agreed to wait until all customers are repaid with interest before collecting any payment. FTX is required to pay $8.7 billion in restitution and $4 billion in disgorgement to further compensate victims for their losses. Despite the settlement, some victims of the crypto theft remain dissatisfied, arguing that they are being short-changed by the decision to repay them based on lower cryptocurrency prices from November 2022.
FTX is currently soliciting votes on its bankruptcy proposal, with final approval expected on 7 October. The exchange has been selling assets purchased with misappropriated customer funds to satisfy its obligations. Meanwhile, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing $8 billion from customers, has appealed his conviction.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a formal antitrust investigation nto Amazon’s $4 billion investment in AI startup Anthropic. This follows recent scrutiny of Google’s ties with the same company, as concerns grow over Big Tech’s strategic investments in AI firms. The CMA’s investigation will determine whether Amazon’s stake in Anthropic could harm competition within the United Kingdom, despite the e-commerce giant not holding a majority stake or board seat in the startup.
Anthropic, established in 2021 and known for developing large language models like its chatbot Claude, has raised $10 billion so far. Its public benefit corporation status is intended to distinguish it from rivals in the AI space. Despite Amazon’s significant investment, Anthropic maintains that its strategic partnerships do not compromise its independence or ability to collaborate with other companies. The CMA has 40 working days to decide whether to advance the investigation to a more in-depth phase.
The CMA’s move comes amid increasing concerns about Big Tech companies adopting a ‘quasi-merger’ approach to avoid full acquisitions, which would likely face greater regulatory scrutiny. The regulator has also been examining similar deals, including Microsoft’s investments in AI startups like OpenAI and Mistral AI. The outcome of the CMA’s probe into Amazon’s investment in Anthropic could have broader implications for how tech giants are regulated in their acquisition strategies.
Amazon’s investment is part of a wider trend in which leading tech companies are securing stakes in promising AI startups to ensure they stay ahead in the rapidly evolving AI sector. With the CMA’s investigation underway, the regulatory landscape for these types of deals is expected to become more stringent, potentially reshaping future investment strategies in the AI industry.
The DPC is seeking a court order to stop or limit the processing of user data by X for training its AI systems, expressing concerns that this could violate the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The case may be referred to the European Data Protection Board for further review.
The legal dispute is part of a broader conflict between Big Tech companies and regulators over using personal data to develop AI technologies. Consumer organisations have accused X of breaching GDPR, a claim the company has vehemently denied, calling the DPC’s actions unwarranted and overly broad.
The Irish DPC has an important role in overseeing X’s compliance with the EU data protection laws since the platform’s operations in the EU are managed from Dublin. The current legal proceedings could significantly shift how Ireland enforces GDPR against large tech firms.
The DPC is also concerned about X’s plans to launch a new version of Grok, which is reportedly being trained using data from the EU and European Economic Area users. The privacy watchdog argues that this could worsen existing issues with data processing.
Despite X implementing some mitigation measures, such as offering users an opt-out option, these steps were not in place when the data processing began, leading to further scrutiny from the DPC. X has resisted the DPC’s requests to halt data processing or delay the release of the new Grok version, leading to an ongoing court battle.
The outcome of this case could set a precedent for how AI and data protection issues are handled across Europe.
X users recently discovered that their data was being used to train Grok, an AI chatbot that Musk’s company xAI developed, without explicit consent. The complaint accuses X of failing to clearly explain its data usage practices, collecting excessive data, and possibly mishandling sensitive information. Scialdone has called on the DPC to order X to stop using personal data for AI training and to ensure compliance with GDPR. Violations of these regulations can lead to fines as high as 4% of a company’s worldwide annual revenue, making non-compliance potentially very expensive for X.
The complaint also highlights issues with X’s communication regarding its data processing practices. According to Scialdone, X’s privacy policy does not transparently outline the legal basis for using personal data for AI training. The policy mentions using data on a ‘legitimate interest’ basis, which allows data processing if it serves a valid purpose without infringing on users’ rights. However, Scialdone argued that this information is not easily accessible to users. He also stressed that such legal actions would lead to a consistent regulatory approach across different platforms, preventing disparities in user treatment and market inequalities.
Why does this matter?
Musk’s approach to compliance with the EU privacy laws has been controversial, raising concerns about X’s adherence to regulatory standards. The DPC’s actions signal a potential end to Musk’s relatively unchecked run on GDPR oversight since the filed suit marks the third major tech company facing such allegations, following similar complaints against Meta and LinkedIn. Recently, X has also faced regulatory challenges in the Netherlands and scrutiny under the EU’s Digital Services Act, which could lead to even steeper penalties for non-compliance.
Apple has requested a US judge to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit filed by federal and state regulators, accusing the tech giant of monopolising the smartphone market. The Justice Department, along with 19 states and Washington, D.C., allege that Apple maintains an illegal monopoly by imposing contractual restrictions and withholding critical access from developers.
In its defence, Apple argues that the limitations placed on third-party developers are reasonable and do not constitute anti-competitive behaviour. The company contends that being forced to share its technology with competitors would stifle innovation. Apple further asserts that courts should not be involved in overseeing product design and policy choices in rapidly changing technical markets.
Why does this matter?
The lawsuit challenges Apple’s restrictions and fees on app developers. It claims the company hinders interoperability between iPhones and third-party apps and devices, effectively locking users into Apple’s ecosystem and harming competition. However, Apple counters that no evidence proves its practices harm competition or consumers, who can switch to competitors if dissatisfied with iPhone features.
US District Judge Julien Neals will consider responses from both the government and Apple before deciding on the motion later this year. The legal case is among five major antitrust lawsuits against major tech companies, including Meta, Amazon, and Google.
