Energy Department Secretary Jennifer Granholm said at a Senate hearing that her agency is developing a framework it will use to require crypto miners report their energy usage. The department’s National Laboratory Report on Data Center Energy Use will include crypto miners and will be used as a basis for creating an Energy Information Administration survey to require mandatory disclosures by crypto mining companies according to her commentary.

On Tuesday CFTC Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero gave a keynote speech at City Week in London on “Illicit Finance and Other Key Risks of Digital Assets.” In her comments she discussed how the current state of digital assets differs from the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto and outlined the risk cryptocurrency poses with respect to illicit finance, cyber hacks, fraud, and financial stability.

Coinbase, the largest U.S. crypto exchange, filed a lawsuit on Monday against the SEC calling for a federal court to require the agency to formally state whether it will create rules for digital assets that function similarly to stocks and bonds.

House Financial Services Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has revealed a new Republican-led proposal for regulating stablecoins. The discussion draft reportedly notes that it would give state officials more leeway than the bipartisan draft he formulated with Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) during the last Congress. Like the earlier bill, it would direct the Federal Reserve and other bank regulators with acting as the primary federal regulators of the issuers of payments stablecoins, which would be exempt from securities laws.

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned three individuals for providing support to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea through illicit financing and malicious cyber activity. Treasury’s announcement says that the DPRK launders stolen virtual currency and deploys information technology workers to fraudulently obtain employment to generate revenue in virtual currency to support the government.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that it has issued an Order of Registration to RTX Fintech & Research LLC granting it registration as a swap execution facility. RTX SEF is a single-member limited liability company registered in Delaware and headquartered in New York City.

European Parliament has approved the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) Regulation, marking one of the first major attempts by a world power to create comprehensive regulations for digital assets. The rule creates standards and a path to registration for issuers of crypto assets, including stablecoins and their service providers. The chamber reached a preliminary agreement on the text of the regulation in June 2022, and this week Parliament approved the legislation in a 517-38 vote with 18 abstentions.

The SEC has issued a staff bulletin directing money managers and brokers to consider alternatives to risky products, which they said include digital assets and derivatives, before recommending them to retail clients. The SEC specifically stated that “heightened scrutiny” should be used when evaluating these products.

The SEC has sued crypto exchange Bittrex, weeks after the exchange announced it would be ending its business in the United States. The suit was filed in Seattle federal court and claims that the company is an unregistered securities platform that worked with token issuers to concern language about their assets that could draw regulators’ attention to activity.