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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the industry is working on several ideas to help community banks in the CLARITY market structure bill. Brian Armstrong, the CEO of crypto exchange Coinbase, denied reports that the White House is considering pulling support for the CLARITY Act, a crypto market structure bill, and also denied rumors that the administration is “furious” with Coinbase. “The White House has been super constructive here. They did ask us to see if we can go figure out a deal with the banks, which we're currently working on,” Armstrong said.  On Friday, independent journalist Eleanor Terrett reported a clash between Coinbase and the administration of US President Donald Trump, with the White House threatening to withdraw support for the market structure bill if Coinbase did not resume negotiations. Read more

Coinbase withdrew support for the CLARITY Act, warning the draft would restrict DeFi, ban tokenized equities and eliminate stablecoin rewards. The White House is considering withdrawing its support for crypto market structure bill following a similar move from crypto exchange Coinbase, according to Fox Business reporter Eleanor Terrett, citing a source close to the Trump administration. In a Sunday post on X, Terrett reported that the White House is furious over Coinbase’s decision to pull its backing for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, describing the move as a “unilateral” action that blindsided administration officials. “The White House is said to be furious with Coinbase’s “unilateral” action on Wednesday, which it apparently was not notified of in advance, calling it a “rug pull” against the White House and the rest of the industry,” she wrote. Read more

Selling the Bitcoin would have violated President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14233, which mandates that any Bitcoin obtained through criminal or civil forfeiture “shall not be sold.” A White House crypto advisor said he received confirmation from the US Department of Justice that no Bitcoin forfeited from the Samourai case was sold, putting rumors to rest. The confirmation was shared on X by Patrick Witt, Executive Director of the White House President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets: “We have received confirmation from DOJ that the digital assets forfeited by Samourai Wallet have not been liquidated and will not be liquidated,” Witt posted to X Friday, adding that the forfeited Bitcoin would remain part of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. Read more

Denmark and Greenland’s top diplomats held high-stakes talks at the White House on Wednesday, with US President Donald Trump warning it was “vital” for the United States to take control of the Arctic island. Shortly before the meeting with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Denmark announced it was immediately boosting its military presence in strategic Greenland. Footage from CNN showed Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his Greenlandic counterpart Vivian Motzfeldt arriving at the White House campus, while AFP journalists saw Rubio and Vance heading into the talks. Trump’s escalating threats over Greenland — a vast and sparsely populated autonomous territory belonging to Nato ally Denmark — have deeply shaken transatlantic relations. The 79-year-old Republican insisted ahead of the talks that Nato should support the US effort to take control of Greenland, saying it was crucial for his planned Golden Dome air and missile defence system. “Nato becomes far more formidab...

The White House said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump is discussing options for acquiring Greenland, including potential use of the military, in a revival of his ambition to control the strategic island despite European objections. Trump sees acquiring Greenland as a US national security priority necessary to “deter our adversaries in the Arctic region”, the White House said in a statement. “The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilising the US military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal,” the White House said. Greenland has repeatedly said it does not want to be part of the United States. Leaders from major European powers and Canada rallied behind the Arctic territory on Tuesday, saying it belongs to its people. A US military seizure of Greenland from a longtime ally, Denmark, would send shock waves through the Nato alliance and deepen the divide between Trump and European leaders. The strong ...

Two US National Guard soldiers were critically wounded on Wednesday after being shot in a brazen daytime attack a few blocks from the White House, with US President Donald Trump terming the incident an “act of terror”. The incident, which left two Guard members critically wounded, was “an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror,” Trump said. “It was a crime against our entire nation.” He confirmed that the man taken into custody after the daylight shooting two blocks from the White House was “a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan”. The suspect had arrived in the United States in 2021 “on those infamous flights,” Trump said, referring to the evacuations of Afghans fleeing as the Taliban took over the country in the wake of the US retreat after 20 years of war. “We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan” under former president Joe Biden, Trump said. “We must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who d...

After months of trading insults, US President Donald Trump and incoming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani smiled at each other, swapped compliments and pledged to collaborate on tackling crime and affordability in the nation’s biggest city at an unexpectedly friendly meeting at the White House on Friday. The political opposites, a Republican billionaire and a young democratic socialist, have clashed over everything from immigration to economic policy. But it was clear the two forged a rapport in their first encounter. Mamdani, a 34-year-old state lawmaker, stood by Trump’s desk as the 79-year-old president smiled up at him and patted him warmly on the arm, having only recently falsely caricatured Mamdani as an anti-Semitic communist, among other jibes. “We agree on a lot more than I would have thought,” Trump said after letting journalists and cameras into the Oval Office at the end of a private meeting with the mayor-elect. “We have one thing in common: We want this city of ours that we love to do very well...

The White House is reviewing a proposal to join an international crypto tax standard that could deter Americans from moving their digital assets to offshore exchanges. The White House is reviewing the Internal Revenue Service’s proposal to join the global Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, which would provide the tax department with access to Americans’ foreign crypto account data. Adoption of the “Broker Digital Transaction Reporting” proposal — submitted to the White House last Friday — would put the US crypto tax system in line with 72 other countries that have committed to implementing CARF by 2028. While the proposal wasn’t categorized as “economically significant” by the IRS, the rule would force Americans to be far more stringent in reporting capital gains tax from foreign crypto platforms. Read more

Syria is joining the global coalition against the militant Islamic State (IS) group, a United States’ official said on Monday hours after US President Donald Trump welcomed his Syrian counterpart Ahmed al-Sharaa for historic White House talks. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December last year, was the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the Middle Eastern country’s independence in 1946. But the 43-year-old’s landmark visit to the Oval Office came just days after Washington removed him from its terrorism list. Sharaa’s group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), was formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda. “During the visit, Syria announced that it is joining the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS,” becoming the 90th member of the alliance and “partnering with the United States to eliminate ISIS remnants and halt foreign fighter flows”, a senior administration official said. According to the official, Syria will also be allowed to resume diplomatic relations with Washington “t...

The U.S. draft would lift sanctions on President al-Sharaa and his interior minister ahead of the Syrian leader's White House visit, signaling Washington's push to ease restrictions, though a Security Council veto could still block it

United States President Donald Trump speaks often with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and trade teams from both countries continue to hold talks, the White House said on Tuesday. “The president and his trade team continue to be in very serious discussions with India,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told reporters. “I know the president has great respect for Prime Minister Modi, and they speak pretty frequently.” Trump said last week in South Korea that he wanted to reach a trade deal with India — signalling a thaw in relations that soured to their lowest point in decades after the US president doubled tariffs on Indian imports to 50 per cent as punishment for India’s purchases of Russian oil. Indian refiners cut Russian oil imports after Washington imposed sanctions last week on Moscow’s top two crude exporters, Rosneft and Lukoil. Earlier this month, Trump claimed that Modi has agreed to cut Russian oil imports — something New Delhi has not commented on. A White House official said New Delhi h...

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will be at the White House on November 18 for an official working visit with United States President Donald Trump, a White House official said on Monday. The visit comes as Trump pushes Saudi Arabia to join the list of nations that have joined the Abraham Accords. In 2020, Trump reached deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco to normalise relations with Israel. The Saudis have been hesitant to join in the absence of steps toward Palestinian statehood. Trump told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview broadcast on Sunday that he believed the Saudis would ultimately join the accords. The US president also said earlier this month that he expected an expansion of the Abraham Accords soon and hoped Saudi Arabia would join the pact. In August, he also stressed the importance of Middle Eastern countries joining the accords. Trump and the crown prince may also discuss a US-Saudi defence agreement. The Financial Times reported two weeks ago that there ...

US President Donald Trump’s administration on Friday banned reporters from accessing a core part of the White House press office without an appointment, citing the need to protect “sensitive material”. Journalists are now barred if they do not have prior approval to access the area in the West Wing known as Upper Press — which is where Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s office is located. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung defended the move, saying without providing evidence that reporters had been “ambushing” cabinet secretaries in the area and secretly recording video and audio. “This memorandum directs the prohibition of press passholders from accessing … ‘Upper Press,’ which is situated adjacent to the Oval Office, without an appointment,” said a memo from the White House National Security Council (NSC). The memo, addressed to Leavitt and Cheung, said the aim was “protecting sensitive material from unauthorized disclosure in Upper Press”. The policy comes amid wider restrictions on journali...

US President Donald Trump has pardoned convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, a White House official said on Thursday. In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had “exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency.“ Binance did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zhao, one of the most powerful people in the crypto world, had to step down as chief of Binance when the company agreed to a $4.3 billion settlement with the US government to end a years-long probe into misconduct at the world’s largest crypto exchange. Trump’s pardon of Zhao paves the way for the crypto mogul to return to the business he helped found in 2017. He has already served his time in prison after a judge sentenced him to four months. Zhao’s pardon is the latest in a series Trump has doled out to executives convicted of white collar crimes. Earlier in April, he was appointed as a strategic advi...

During negotiations at the White House, Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Ambassador at Large and Special Envoy to the Middle East, pressured Ukraine to cede the Donetsk region to the Russian Federation.

Presidents Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and Donald Trump of the United States, together with their delegations, have begun bilateral talks at the White House, taking place in the format of an official working lunch.

The White House lashed out at the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday after it awarded the peace prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and overlooked US President Donald Trump. “The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace,” White House Director of Communications Steven Cheung said on X. “President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will.” Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump had repeatedly insisted that he deserved the Nobel for his role in resolving numerous conflicts — a claim observers say is broadly exaggerated. Trump restated his claim on the eve of the peace prize announcement, saying that his brokering of the first phase of a ceasefire in Gaza this week was the eighth war he had ended. But he added on Thursday: “Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for tha...

The United States will regard “any armed attack” on Qatari territory as a threat to Washington and will provide the Gulf Arab state with security guarantees, the White House said, after an Israeli strike on the country last month. “In light of the continuing threats to the State of Qatar posed by foreign aggression, it is the policy of the United States to guarantee the security and territorial integrity of the State of Qatar against external attack,” said an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on Monday. In the event of an attack on Qatar, the United States will “take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability,” the order said. The agreement comes after an Israeli strike on the key US regional ally on September 9, targeting officials from Hamas who were discussing a US peace proposal to end the conflict in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minist...

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and US President Donald Trump discussed regional security and cooperation along the lines of counter-terrorism, among other matters, as the two met for the first time at the Oval Office in Washington in the early hours of Friday morning, according to a press release from the PM Office. The premier was accompanied by the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Field Marshal Asim Munir, while the US President was joined by US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as per an earlier statement from the PM office. PM Shehbaz thanked Trump for “his public endorsement of Pakistan’s role in counterterrorism and stressed the need to further enhance cooperation in security and intelligence,” as the two discussed matters of regional security. The premier described Trump as a “man of peace”, lauding his “sincere” efforts in ending conflicts around the world. PM Shehbaz branded Trump’s style of leadership “bold, courageous and decisive,” and thanked the US president for his role in me...

Tech giant Oracle is set to provide security for a US version of TikTok’s algorithm, the White House said on Monday, under a deal for the sale of the Chinese-owned app’s American operations. The proposal moves TikTok’s US operations into a new joint venture based in the United States, a senior White House official told reporters, adding that the entity would involve a “majority-American board of directors.” Oracle, in turn, is expected to serve as a security provider. The agreement provides that a copy of TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm be brought into the US joint venture system, the official said. “It’s going to be fully inspected and retrained by the security provider on US user data, and then it’s going to be operated by that US entity,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Washington has forcefully sought to take TikTok’s US operations from the hands of the Chinese parent company ByteDance over national security reasons. Under President Donald Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, C...