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In a statement released on Wednesday, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler expressed his strong opposition to the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, also known as the FIT21 Act.
According to a transcript published by the SEC, Gensler believes that the proposed legislation, H.R. 4763, would undermine regulation and demolish investment contract oversight precedents — with grave consequences. He said:
[The legislation] would create new regulatory gaps and undermine decades of precedent regarding the oversight of investment contracts, putting investors and capital markets at immeasurable risk.
Gensler’s primary concern is that FIT21 could allow crypto firms to self-certify their investments and products as “decentralized” and under a “special class” of “digital commodities,” thereby avoiding SEC scrutiny. He argues that the SEC’s ability to challenge these self-certifications would be limited by resource constraints, potentially leaving a large portion of the crypto market unregulated. He added:
Further, by removing this set of investment contracts from the statutory list of securities, the bill implies what courts have repeatedly ruled – but what crypto market participants have attempted to deny – that many crypto assets are being offered and sold as securities under existing law.
“Rules not unclear, but unfollowed”
Furthermore, Gensler pointed out that the bill excludes crypto trading platforms from the definition of an exchange and eliminates historically tested frameworks such as the Howey test, which he believes would ultimately put investors at risk. He emphasized that the crypto industry’s record of failures, frauds, and bankruptcies is not due to a lack of rules or unclear regulations, but rather because many players in the crypto industry do not adhere to the existing rules.
Despite Gensler’s concerns, FIT21 has garnered support from 60 crypto organizations, including Gemini, Kraken, Coinbase, and the Digital Currency Group. These organizations signed a letter stating that digital asset firms are currently being tied to securities laws designed nearly a century ago. The bill, led by the U.S. Republican Party, aims to entrust more responsibility to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in regulating the larger crypto ecosystem.
Notable supporters of the bill include Republican candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump and his advisors, who believe that FIT21 could provide a more comprehensive approach to regulating the crypto industry. The U.S. House of Representatives plans to vote on the bill later on Wednesday.
The news follows recent reports that the U.S. Senate has joined forces with the House of Representatives to nullify a SEC’s controversial crypto policy. The policy required companies holding customers’ cryptocurrencies to record them on their own balance sheets, potentially having significant capital implications for banks working with crypto clients.
Just yesterday Ethereum (ETH) has soared by about 21% within 24 hours after analysts started suggesting that the coin may soon see the approval of its own spot exchange-traded fund.
The post SEC Chair strongly opposes crypto-friendly bill ahead of key vote appeared first on ReadWrite.

A chatbot trained on the thoughts of China’s President Xi Jinping has been created by the country’s top internet regulator.
The large language model (LLM) has been launched by the China Cyberspace Research Institute which operates under the Cyberspace Administration of China, the national regulator.
With people in China unable to use the ever-popular ChatGPT tool, this attempt is aiming to keep residents in on the AI action without using a non-Chinese model.
The draconian nature of the country’s controls has made its way into the chatbot as the closed AI system is based on Xi Jinping’s political philosophy and is aligned completely with the official government narrative.
The philosophy is known as ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ and this includes all instructions on political, social, and economic life. It became part of China’s constitution in 2018.
Since then, his philosophy has become enshrined in Chinese culture as school children as young as 10 even have to study his politics.
According to a post on WeChat by the administration, as reported by the South China Morning Post, the LLM is described as being able to meet “a wide range of users needs” and can answer questions, outline reports, summarize information, and translate between Chinese and English.
The system has been created on the servers within the China Cyberspace Research Institute where “all data is processed locally, ensuring a high level of security.”
The model isn’t yet available to a wide and public audience as it’s still undergoing testing, but some designated users have been invited to try it out.
Chinese-based developers control generated content relating to Xi Jinping
Other technology giants like Baidu and Alibaba have generative AI chatbots and any generated content about the President is strictly controlled.
Both of the systems tend to ask users to restart chats when sensitive topics are brought up.
In light of this, the non-profit Cyber Security Association of China released a public database of 100mn entries of data that groups can use in model training.
Featured Image: Photo by Ling Tang on Unsplash
The post China creates its own ChatGPT chatbot based on Xi Jinping appeared first on ReadWrite.

XDefiant has been brandished the new ‘CoD killer’ with its fine-tuned mechanics that fans for the fast-paced FPS genre have been wanting for some time now.
However, with Call of Duty being a multifaceted affair these days with the introduction of Warzone, many are now wondering if there will be an XDefiant battle royale in the future.
Let’s get into all we know on an XDefiant BR mode.
XDefiant battle royale: Everything we know
At this current time, no, XDefiant does and will not have a battle royale mode. Instead, it will simply be the arena shooter many have been clambering for, with those added unique abilities and factions Ubisoft is known for.
Mark Rubin, the Executive Developer on XDefiant even came out in February 2023 to state that they “are solely focused on making a great and fun arena shooter. No BR.” and will not “moving on to a new game after this”. Since the full title has launched and there has been no correction to this message, it’s safe to say that a battle royale will not be coming.

This may come as a surprise to most since Call of Duty made the jump to the battle royale genre quite smoothly, and has brought more and more people into the franchise because of this. But, Ubisoft compared to Activision and its studios is a very different beast, with its expertise laying in those single-player titles rather than large-scale multiplayer affairs.
However, with this being said, they did have a crack at a battle royale game called Hyper Scape but if you’ve not heard of this, you’re likely not alone. It was innovative and very content creator-friendly but sadly it didn’t have the legs, and quite frankly, The Finals has pretty much taken its place in the market.
With a battle pass to level up and seasons to make your way through, XDefiant does borrow some battle royale features but as of right now, this is as close as you’re going to get to the fan-favorite looting and shooting genre.
The post Will there be an XDefiant battle royale? appeared first on ReadWrite.