March 28 (Reuters) - Five Democratic senators, led by Elizabeth Warren, sought answers regarding World Liberty Financial, a crypto project backed by President Donald Trump and family, and its newly announced plans to issue a stablecoin, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday citing a letter.The lawmakers warned U.S. financial regulators of a potential "extraordinary conflict of interest" in overseeing the cryptocurrency entity, the Wall Street Journal said. The letter was sent early Friday, addressed to the Federal Reserve's vice chair of bank supervision Michelle Bowman and acting comptroller of the currency Rodney Hood, according to the Journal.The senators questioned how regulators would manage oversight given the company's ties to the sitting president, the report said.Legislation moving through Congress would set up a regulatory structure for stablecoins, digital currencies that act as dollar-like instruments for storing value or purchasing other crypto assets, as per the report.The bill would designate the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) as overseers, while laying out specific standards for reserves and consumer protections, the report added.The Federal Reserve declined to comment. The White House and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) didn't immediately respond to Reuters request for comments.Founded two months before Trump's victory in the U.S. presidential election, World Liberty's creation was announced by Trump, his three sons and the wealthy real estate businessman Steve Witkoff, who is now Trump's Middle East envoy.Trump's aides have said he has handed over control of his business ventures, which are being reviewed by outside ethics lawyersOn Tuesday, World Liberty Financial said it will launch a stablecoin, called USD1, adding that it will be fully backed by U.S. Treasuries, dollars and other cash equivalents and is designed to keep a value of $1.Reporting by Bipasha Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama

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PARIS, March 27 (Reuters) - France's state-owned investment bank, Bpifrance, plans to spend up to 25 million euros ($26.95 million) on little-known cryptocurrencies in a bid to support France's crypto businesses, it said on Thursday.The bank has previously spent 150 million euros on investments in blockchain-related projects, including "limited amounts" of investments in cryptocurrencies, but this is the first time it has created a fund specifically to buy cryptocurrencies directly. Instead of purchasing large cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, the fund will be targeted towards buying smaller newly-created tokens issued by French projects, before they are listed on crypto exchanges, said Arnaud Caudoux, deputy CEO of Bpifrance."The U.S. is really accelerating its own crypto strategy so this is all the more important," Caudoux said, adding that Bpifrance's move into crypto started before the pro-crypto shift in the United States.Bpifrance could also help token projects get listed on exchanges, Caudoux added."Bpifrance's initiative is a strong signal of our determination to make France a country of excellence for these technologies," said Clara Chappaz, France's Minister Delegate in charge of AI and Digital.There has been a revival of interest in cryptocurrencies since U.S. President Donald Trump's election win in November. Trump has expressed support for the industry, sought to overhaul policies and even launched his own crypto products.European finance ministers, however, are concerned that the U.S. embrace of cryptocurrencies could affect euro zone monetary sovereignty and financial stability.Caudoux said that U.S. policies were attracting crypto companies to move there."We have great engineers and great companies in Europe, including in the UK obviously, and we want to keep those companies here because we strongly believe that it is very important in the future to have our own ecosystem," Caudoux said.The European Union in 2023 introduced the world's first set of comprehensive crypto regulations, requiring crypto companies to be authorised by the EU to serve customers in the bloc.Bpifrance is jointly owned by the French state and the country's public lender, CDC, and invests money to serve French public policy objectives.France's finance minister last week announced that Bpifrance would launch a 450 million euro defence-focused fund.($1 = 0.9278 euros)Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes, Kirsten Donovan

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PRAGUE, March 19 (Reuters) - Czech National Bank board member Jan Kubicek is "sceptical" about the inclusion of bitcoin among the bank's hefty reserves, wary of legal uncertainties and concerns around volatility of the digital currency.CNB Governor Ales Michl put bitcoin up for consideration earlier this year, and the bank has begun an analysis looking into broadening the asset classes it holds in its reserves portfolio. "We will assess different classes of assets. Bitcoin is just one of them," Kubicek said in an interview on Tuesday. "My position is rather sceptical about bitcoin." He said bitcoin's legal status was one concern, and that direct ownership would mean developing many new processes in accounting or auditing, for example.Volatility was another worry and assessing market price developments was difficult, he said."We cannot be certain that bitcoin's volatility in the coming years will mirror the patterns observed over the past decade because I suspect that, if more institutional investors accept bitcoin as an investment asset, it will start to behave differently from what we have seen so far."The bank's study on new asset classes could come by October, Kubicek said.Holdings of international corporate bonds could be explored, he said, as well as the possibility of investing in more targeted equity indices, such as for technology, and property investment funds.CNB Vice Governor Eva Zamrazilova has said bitcoin is not a suitable asset for reserves, while European Central Bank boss Christine Lagarde has also said Europe's central banks are not the place for it.The Czech central bank's reserves - at 142.8 billion euros ($155.75 billion) - are around 45% of gross domestic product, and it has diversified holdings in recent years, gradually purchasing gold, and shifting a larger portion of the portfolio into equities.($1 = 0.9168 euros)Reporting by Jason Hovet; Editing by Rachna Uppal

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