Republicans urged federal authorities to take a light-touch approach to regulating stablecoins during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, while Democrats intensified demands for strong consumer protection.

Mastercard said it will hire more than 500 young professionals this year as it expands its data and services unit, an effort that will include launching consulting practices focused on cryptocurrencies and open banking.

The crypto lender, which didn’t admit or deny wrongdoing, had been accused of illegally offering a product that pays customers high interest rates to lend out their digital tokens. The company sold the accounts to U.S. investors without registering them as securities, the Securities and Exchange Commission had said.

“Ancillary parties who cannot get access to information that is useful to the IRS are not intended to be captured by the reporting requirements for brokers,” Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Jonathan Davidson told lawmakers.

The country that gets it right first will see rapid business and job creation, attract the world’s best and brightest minds and set the standard other nations will follow.

The U.K. fintech sees itself as a competitor to Block and PayPal's Bitcoin-trading operations, with plans to offer Americans banking services such as a savings account in the near future.

Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan, were arrested for allegedly masterminding the 2016 scheme. They are scheduled to appear at federal court in Manhattan Tuesday afternoon.

Stablecoins are unlikely to be the future of payments despite their growing market value in the last two years, according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York blog post.

The cryptocurrency has made its way to the workplace.

Though Jelena McWilliams is leaving the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday, her comment could carry weight among regulators and lawmakers mulling the creation of a legal framework for private digital currencies and a federal insurance fund for them.

The tech company’s platform will let digital currency holders borrow against their digital assets and have the loan proceeds placed in a bank account.

The upgrades merchants made to accept chip cards and mobile wallets have made it easier to add new services via software updates. NCR and other point-of-sale vendors are using these systems to support digital currencies without requiring new hardware.

The draft legislation authored by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., would allow "qualified" nonbanks to issue stablecoins and create an insurance fund to offset losses.

Meta's departure from the crypto market removes a sizable potential competitor at the same time that nonbank issuers are bracing for tougher regulatory scrutiny.

Goldman Sachs Group said that, while it's exploring creating a stablecoin with partners, any introduction of a digital currency remains a ways off.

Affirm Holdings, known for its buy now/pay later options, beefed up its app as the firm works toward a crypto offering.

The controversial cryptocurrency project that Mark Zuckerberg once defended in front of Congress is unraveling after regulatory pressure.

Google has hired former PayPal executive Arnold Goldberg to run its payments division and set a new course for the business after it scrapped a push into banking.

The new offering’s loan structure is designed to hedge against digital currency's price volatility.

SoFi Bank, which is expected to open next month, emerges from the company’s purchase of a small community bank in California. It will not be allowed to engage in crypto-asset activities without its primary regulator’s approval.