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Financial infidelity has become increasingly sophisticated, as investors “hop” coins across blockchains and sink their cash into metaverse properties.

From Bitcoin in divorce: How spouses hide assets, crypto hunters find them:

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As regulation comes for crypto, it will make transactions more expensive. Mr Poon of Hong Kong Polytechnic University says much of the cost of financial transactions comes from complying with regulations like know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering laws. The question then is: if crypto faces the same regulation as fintech firms, does it offer anything uniquely valuable?

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In Shanghai, the police recently broke up a crime syndicate accused of making and selling nearly $50 million in bogus Lego.

From A Lego Crime, a YouTube Rivalry, and the End of a Star Wars Friendship:

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The new Consumer Duty requires firms to act in good faith and help consumers to achieve their financial objectives and sets out four key outcomes it expects from organisations: consumer understanding (helping them to make the right financial decisions based on information that is understandable and available at the right time), value (and without excessive fees), products that are matched to the consumers’ and service that is responsive and helpful. There is also a duty for providers to avoid foreseeable harms throughout customer journeys which will in particular mean preempting financial vulnerability.

The SEPA Proxy Lookup scheme covers the exchange of the data necessary to initiate payments between proxy-based payment solutions on a pan-European level. It aims to facilitate interoperability between participating payment solutions.
The scheme is limited to a look-up function with the sole purpose of initiating a payment. The scheme covers (mobile) payments whereby the mobile telephone number or optionally the email address is used as a proxy to an IBAN. It is envisaged that the scheme will evolve further over time to support additional proxy types, account identifiers and use cases.

As an optional feature, the scheme also foresees the possibility to perform a reachability check to determine whether a mobile number or optionally email address is registered.

From SEPA Proxy Lookup | European Payments Council:

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Another key type of identity fraud is account takeover fraud, which amounted to $11 billion in losses. This type of fraud is a particularly pesky variety.

“If fraudsters can insert themselves into the validation process of the fraud alerts that banks and credit unions send out, it can be very devastating,” Robbins said.

From Identity Fraud Study Highlights the Changing Nature of Fraud:

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If we’re serious about digital personhood, then it’s time to get serious about digital identity.

From Web3 Has an Identity Crisis on its Hands – Blockworks:

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BlockBeats, a Chinese news site, said in tweets posted earlier today that people in China — where people cannot yet sign up to receive a share of the Worldcoin token when it launches — are purchasing iris scans taken in Cambodia and Africa for as little as $30. The news drew sharp criticism from Twitter users.

A spokesperson for Worldcoin acknowledged these incidents in a written statement sent to The Block, but stressed that the problem was confined to “a few hundred instances.”

From The Block: Sam Altman’s Worldcoin rolls out fresh measures to combat black market:

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During our correspondence, the suppliers showed no concerns about how the chemical would be used, with some explaining that it was their best-selling product and could be used to produce fentanyl. Others pointedly mentioned that they had sold it to customers in Mexico. When asked whether these Mexico-based customers paid using cryptocurrency, one responded:

“They always use USDT or Bitcoin to pay . It is no problem.”

Seventeen of the businesses even offered to provide fentanyl itself – despite the Chinese government ban. Others offered to provide other synthetic opioids even more potent than fentanyl, but that are currently legal to produce and sell in China.

From Chinese Businesses Fueling the Fentanyl Epidemic Receive Tens of Millions in Crypto Payments:

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Iosco, the umbrella group for global markets regulators, on Tuesday published guidelines for authorities toughening their standards in the wake of a string of industry blow-ups, notably crypto exchange FTX. The 18-point plan covers areas including conflicts of interest, disclosure rules and governance.

“The diversity we’ve got at the moment across jurisdictions is not that they’re moving in different directions, but that they haven’t gone far enough in the direction that they all know they should go in,” Iosco secretary-general Martin Moloney told the Financial Times.

From Iosco calls on global regulators to be faster and bolder on crypto markets | Financial Times:

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