Today in Crypto: MicroStrategy Hires GreenSky CFO as Its Financial Chief; Council of Europe AML Watchdog Calls for More Virtual Assets Regulation

MicroStrategy, which is one of a few companies with massive crypto holdings, has named a new finance chief in Andrew Kang, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday (May 4).

This comes after the company said last week that it would offer employees the option to invest their 401(k) funds in Bitcoin. Kang was previously CFO of the home improvement lender GreenSky.

In more crypto news, Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering and counterterrorist financing body, is asking governments to do more to regulate the virtual assets sector, a council press release said.

The body wants them to look into specialized “gatekeeper” jobs like lawyers, accountants and other service providers who help launderers.

The report cites Elżbieta Frankow-Jaśkiewicz, chair of Moneyval, who talks of the growing scale of money laundering and how “the persistence of launderers in abusing the international financial system to hide their illicit proceeds” were shown with the Pandora Papers leak.

Meanwhile, the Bank of Uganda has warned payment intermediaries against facilitating crypto transactions, having not licensed any institution in the country to do so, Bloomberg reported.

This comes after press advertisements said investors can convert crypto into mobile money or vice versa. The bank said that can’t happen without service providers and system operators.

In other news, digital asset data provider Amberdata has raised $30 million in a Series B, according to a press release.

Amberdata’s work involves delivering data and insights for blockchain networks, crypto markets and DeFi, for the biggest financial institutions entering the digital asset class.

Meanwhile, Binance has officially gotten a Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) registration from the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), Coindesk writes.

The AMF regulates and safeguards the French financial markets, ensuring more financial literacy for investors. It’s an independent authority and looks at banks and insurance in France.

Meanwhile, Coinbase has tweeted that it’s opening up Coinbase NFT Beta for everyone.

The company said it was “still working on adding more features to the product, but eager for you to help us build in public,” according to its tweet.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, signed an executive order to make for more responsible innovation through a “transparent” regulatory and business environment for Web3 companies, a press release said.

The state will now be assessing how to deploy blockchain technology for state and pubic institutions, and also to build research and workforce development pathways to get California ready for more innovations later.

Finally, the state of Hawaii plans to roll out a task force to look into the potential of using crypto, a state government document said.

The state, acknowledging the “vast potential” for use, says it wants to look into if and how to regulate crypto if needed.

The report will “review data and other aspects” to look into plans to expand blockchain adoption both publicly and privately.