A Conversation with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce
Podcast: Is Cryptocurrency a Security (like an orange grove)?
Episode 286 -- Matt Stankiewicz on the Ripple Decision and Celsius CEO Indictment
From Station Wagon to Lamborghini: One CypherPunk’s Journey from Cryptoanarchy to Solana Cross-Chain NFT Innovations
Wax Studios
Summer Enforcement Action Review; Raising Money in a Pandemic - Investment Management Roundtable Discussion
Theoretical No More: Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrencies and the Tax, Legal and Business Implications
The Staff stated that most meme coins are not subject to federal securities laws or SEC fraud enforcement; who will oversee meme coins remains an open question. On February 27, 2025, the Securities and Exchange...more
A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week seeks “to bring crypto assets within the regulatory perimeter” by granting oversight responsibility to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for most forms...more
This is the eighth part in our 2023 series examining important trends in white collar law and investigations. Up next: anti-corruption. The tumultuous crypto events of 2022, combined with the heightened agency and executive...more
In last week's Cabinet News and Views, we examined the U.S. regulators' approach to the digital asset space, with a focus on the assertion of jurisdiction by the CFTC, the SEC, prudential regulators, state executive and...more
Tokenization - Tokenization limits the exposure of sensitive information and makes digital transactions more secure. Whether people realize it or not, millions of Americans already use tokenization technology on a daily...more
It began as an obscure experiment in unregulated virtual currency. Initially undistinguished from Bitcoin, blockchain evolved to become one of the pillars of web 3.0, enabling new means of trust, transparency, security and...more
This BitBlog summary focuses on the continuing actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) against the issuers of noncompliant initial coin offerings (“ICOs”) and other crypto related transactions including...more
U.S. Developments - Regulatory Updates - SEC’s Valerie Szczepanik Speaks at SXSW - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) Associate Director of the Division of Corporation Finance and Senior Advisor for...more
Upcoming Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (“ETF”) Decisions - On January 4, 2018, NYSE Arca filed a proposed rule change to list 9 Bitcoin ETFs. Subsequently, the time for the Security Exchange Commission (“SEC”) to approve or...more
What are the similarities between a one dollar bill, a share of a company, and a prepaid gift card? The answer is … not so much! The same is true of the similarities between virtual currencies, security tokens, and utility...more
Roundup of CFTC Resources - U.S. Developments - Cryptocurrency and the Colorado Money Transmitter License Act - On September 20, 2018, following months of consultation with the Colorado Attorney General’s office,...more
After Bitfinex, the CFTC issued its Proposed Interpretation on “Retail Commodity Transactions Involving Virtual Currency.” Proposed Interpretation, 82 Fed. Reg. 60335 (CFTC Dec. 20, 2017). Although the comment period closed...more
In a series of 2015 decisions, the CFTC determined that virtual currency is a commodity subject to its jurisdiction. In a 2016 settled enforcement action, the CFTC took the position that an unregistered platform...more
The 2011 Dodd-Frank Act amended the CFTC’s jurisdiction to authorize regulation of “retail commodity transactions offered ‘on a leveraged or margined basis, or financed by the offeror, the counterparty, or a person acting in...more
Despite the recent setback of having their Bitcoin ETF rejected by the SEC for the second time, the Winklevoss brothers remain undeterred in their efforts to bring cryptocurrency into the investment mainstream. Their...more
...Favoring cryptocurrency regulation is really something when you consider that slightly more than a decade ago in 2008, the creator of Bitcoin proposed the system for electronic transactions as one that didn’t “rely on...more
U.S. Developments - Regulatory Updates - CFTC Issues Customer Advisory Urging Public to Use Caution When Buying Virtual Currencies - On July 16, 2018, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) issued...more
On April 17, 2018, the New York Attorney General’s Office (“OAG”) launched a Virtual Markets Integrity Initiative and sent letters to thirteen cryptoasset trading platforms requesting, through a questionnaire, disclosures on...more
Last week, former CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler explained in remarks at M.I.T. that he believes the second and third most widely used virtual currencies—Ether and Ripple—may have been issued and traded in violation of securities...more
After months of steadily increasing supervisory activity in regard to the emerging cryptocurrency sector, it now appears that U.S. financial market regulators may have switched gears and entered the enforcement stage....more
When new technologies appear on the scene, Washington regulation is sure to follow. The exact configuration can take years to sort out, especially when it comes to financial products, given the labyrinth of regulatory bodies...more
Below is a summary of some of the significant legal and regulatory actions that occurred over the past week. This alert is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all such developments, but rather a selection of...more
Last month, SEC chairman Jay Clayton and CFTC chairman Christopher Giancarlo testified before the Senate Banking Committee on their agencies’ regulatory efforts with respect to cryptoassets and ICOs. The written testimonies...more
The regulation of virtual currencies, or cryptocurrencies, is evolving. In an important new decision from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the Court held, among other things, that the...more
As we previously have blogged, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) became one of the first regulators to wade into the regulation of cryptocurrency when it released interpretive guidance in March 2013 stating...more