RegAlytics’ Post

Transcript

Hi, I'm Mary Kopczynski, the CEO of RegAlytics, and many of you may already know this, but my family's a bit obsessed with Christmas. Not that we don't love all of the holidays, and I do hope we had a great Thanksgiving upcoming Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, but at my house, it's like Santa Claus barfed all over it. Anyway, this does not stop me from reviewing regulations, so here's your update on this week's 21,575 regulatory alerts. The Regulator of the Week is the United Kingdom, all of it, starting with the fact that there were 264 alerts in the entirety of the government, which is about 170 unique agencies In the last seven days. Compared to over 20,000 in the US, that's actually a manageable amount and it took me about. 30 minutes to scroll through all of the headlines to see if there was anything interesting that caught my eye and here's what I learned. The UK office of communication put out their annual report which highlighted significant digital differences between men and women in the UK, particularly Gen Z. We spend more time online than men, averaging over one hour more daily and men dominate platforms like Reddit and YouTube, women, Pinterest and Instagram, and obviously concerns about online harms for women are higher because of body images, et cetera. Additionally, men are more likely to use generative AI and online dating sites, while women show a stronger interest in health related content. So I thought that was interesting and there are some new online safety laws coming to enhance protections for women and children of the Internet starting in 2025. And Speaking of these safety laws, I also learned from the UK Department of Health and Social Care that starting October 2025, a new law will ban junk food advertisements on television before 9:00 PM and restrict paid online ads targeting children trying to combat Childhood obesity. I also learned from the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sports that the UK government is introducing a tax on gambling operators to raise ��100 million for research and prevention of gambling harms, and half of the funds are going to be allocated to the National Health Service of the UK. And last but certainly not least, the FCA has reported a significant increase in cryptocurrency ownership among UK adults, rising from about 10% to 12% which is about 7 million people and most likely this is because the price of Bitcoin has gone to $95,000 post US election. The topic of the week is national securities exchanges. You've heard of them before, NASDAQ and NYSE, CBOE, CME and many more. But these are places where publicly listed securities can trade. And to build a place where securities can trade, you have to register with the SEC. And This is why a lot of crypto companies got in trouble earlier because some of those tokens being exchanged were representative of securities of the company and they did it without registering anyway. I'm not even going to address. The issues with the SEC and digital assets and for example, crypto ETS, there was a lawsuit and now they have to allow crypto ETFs to list. But where I want to get to is 24X National Exchange. So if you would like an amazing study on entrepreneurial will and stick-to-it-ativeness, may I introduce you to the fine folks at 24X National Exchange which have been attempting to register with the SEC as a formal national securities Exchange since March 25th of 2022. And I know this because I met one of the original founders 3 years ago and every time I'd see an SEC alert about it, I'd forward it to him. And over the years, including their withdrawals and the statements and revisions and re filings, I kind of gave up. I even stopped forwarding it to him because I just figured they would never be able to withstand this long as a startup with no functioning right to operate without regulatory approval. But what a Thanksgiving they must have had because hell froze over and 24X National Exchange will be the first exchange ever to allow for overnight trading. They have some extra disclosures for investors about the risks of trading in the overnight session, but wow, they did it. Congratulations. And I always love Hester Pierce and Carolyn Crenshaw's comments on these issues. And they said, ���yeah, market participants are worried about technology changes, liquidity issues, volatility issues, but you know what, These shouldn't impede the SEC's approval of it. We're regulating the market, not stifling innovation. And it's going to be up to the market participants who are going to have to work out the technicalities.��� What else do you need to know? President Biden pardoned his son, Hunter. And in his note, he said, basically this: ���one, I told you I wasn't going to pardon him. And obviously I've changed my mind. Two, I've always believed that Americans were reasonable people and you just have to tell them the truth. Three, I wasn't planning on pardoning him, but I thought it over the weekend. And once I made-up my mind, there was no point in delaying it. Four, they went after Hunter. But it was really mostly because of who Hunter's father is and it wasn't a normal outcome for a similar type of crime. And finally, five, He's my kid and I'm a father.��� Yeah. Last alert worth mentioning. A recent FTC report reveals that nearly 89% of surveyed smart products do not disclose how long they will receive software updates, which are crucial for security and functionality. The study examined 184 smart devices, including hearing aids and security cameras, and found that 161 lacked Clear information on support duration. The real thing you need to know is this seems like a warning of what's to come at the FTC, but again, we'll see what happens with the new administration. Anyway, that's it this week for RegAlytics.