On July 9, 2025, Commissioner Hester Peirce, head of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, in a published statement said, “Tokenized securities are still securities.” And, as such, the federal securities laws apply to transactions...more
On June 17, 2025, the Senate voted 68-30 with bi-partisan support to pass the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act (“GENIUS Act”), which proposes the establishment of a federal framework for...more
On May 15, 2025, the staff of the Division of Trading and Markets (the “Staff”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) released responses to frequently asked questions (“FAQs”) relating to crypto assets and...more
6/6/2025
/ Broker-Dealer ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Financial Institutions ,
New Guidance ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ,
Securities Regulation ,
Transfer Agents
On February 27, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission formally abandoned its enforcement action against Coinbase. ...more
3/5/2025
/ Coinbase ,
Compliance ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Howey ,
Investment ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Regulation
After years of refusing to give clear answers on the issue of which tokens are securities, the SEC has finally provided some clarity, at least with respect to meme coins: they are not securities. Well, actually, not quite;...more
Just how crypto-friendly will the new administration be? Apparently, plenty. Today, SEC Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda announced the launch of a task force dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework...more
On January 7, 2025, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam announced that he will be stepping down as Chairman on January 20th and leaving the Commission entirely on February 7th. Just before this announcement, Behnam told the Financial...more
Crypto tax policy continues to move forward, domestically and internationally. Domestically, the IRS seeks comments on the new Form 1099-DA. Internationally, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (“OECD”)...more
10/17/2024
/ Criminal Investigations ,
Cross-Border ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
FACTA ,
Income Taxes ,
IRS ,
OECD ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Tax Crimes
The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) recently finalized Treasury Regulations (the “Final Regulations”) and published two notices and a Revenue Procedure (the “Transitional Guidance”) for broker reporting of certain...more
8/29/2024
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Brokers ,
Digital Assets ,
Fair Market Value ,
Final Rules ,
IRS ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Stablecoins ,
Tax Code ,
Tax Planning
According to mythology, the titan Prometheus gave humans the gift of fire. As punishment, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock and an eagle would swoop down to eat his liver, which would then regrow overnight, for the cycle...more
The New Year is upon us, which means plenty of news stories looking back at blockchain events in 2023, such as this one (From NFTs to XRP: the biggest crypto stories of 2023 (Axios)), this one (The Year that Cryptocurrency...more
Three days before Christmas 2020, the SEC served Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives with a lawsuit. How is that for a present under the tree? As the SKrypto Blog reported at the time, the main issue was whether XRP, a...more
7/19/2023
/ Coinbase ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Howey ,
Ripple ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Litigation ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations ,
Sellers ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities
The United States Office of Government Ethics (OGE) released an advisory policy on July 5, 2022 stating that any government employee who holds cryptocurrency, stablecoins, or any other digital asset will be ineligible to work...more