More than two years after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced a new class of “special purpose broker-dealers” authorized to custody crypto asset securities, the first special purpose broker-dealer...more
In this latest issue of the firm’s Focus on Fintech newsletter, our attorneys discuss the dissolution of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and the increased scrutiny on banking activity, as well as a number of updates...more
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of the Treasury (Treasury) released its Illicit Finance Risk Assessment of Decentralized Finance (Assessment). This Assessment, part of a broad regulatory scrutiny of entities that...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved a new form of “Cash Management” exemptive order under the Investment Company Act of 1940 (the 1940 Act) on April 3, 2023. The approved order allows the company that...more
With the announcement of charges against and a settlement with two subsidiaries of a prominent crypto exchange, Kraken, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appears to have a new target within the blockchain...more
The last few years had started to see a convergence between crypto and banking, with bitcoin appearing to rapidly grow mainstream. That momentum hit a wall with the spectacular crypto market failures of 2022, including the...more
2/7/2023
/ Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
FDIC ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinTech ,
OCC ,
Popular
In this latest issue of Wilson Sonsini's Focus on Fintech newsletter, we discuss the FTX bankruptcy and the increased federal regulatory scrutiny of crypto assets, and new rules and innovations in the payments...more
2/1/2023
/ Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs) ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinTech ,
OCC ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
U.S. Treasury ,
UK
Technology companies in the payments space should pay close attention to the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed’s) upcoming launch of a long-awaited new payment system, the FedNow Service. The system will change the consumer payments...more
The staff of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently provided guidance for public companies regarding disclosures pertaining to recent developments in crypto asset...more
In its recent Request for Comment on Certain Information Providers Acting as Investment Advisers (the Request for Comment), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asks whether innovative investment indices, model...more
Welcome to Wilson Sonsini’s Focus on Fintech newsletter. This quarterly newsletter provides ongoing analysis and commentary on regulatory developments impacting the fintech industry.
The third quarter of 2022 has been a...more
11/2/2022
/ Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
CFTC ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Financial Crimes ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Services Industry ,
FinCEN ,
FinTech ,
Payment Systems
Newly proposed environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related amendments to Form ADV under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (Advisers Act) underscore the need for federally regulated investment advisers to fully...more
In an unprecedented enforcement action, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought insider trading charges against a former Coinbase manager and two others related to buying 25 tokens ahead of Coinbase's...more
The Rule Proposal Would Significantly Broaden the Scope of Systems Required to Register as an Exchange or an ATS The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a rule proposal (the Proposal) that would...more
The Rule Proposal Would Clarify Which Market Participants Are Engaged in Buying and Selling Securities for Their Own Account "as Part of a Regular Business" and Are Subject to Dealer Registration Requirements....more
The global NFT (non-fungible token) market now is worth dozens of billions of dollars annually. Innovators and early adopters, marketplaces, and sellers, are all eager to join this market but may have questions about how to...more
5/24/2022
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Economic Sanctions ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Money Laundering ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Virtual Currency
President Biden launched an effort to establish a federal digital assets policy strategy and coordinate the related work of federal regulators by signing the Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital...more
3/16/2022
/ Biden Administration ,
Bitcoin ,
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs) ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Executive Orders ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Financial Transactions ,
Investor Protection ,
Investors
The qualities of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including digital scarcity, immutable persistence, and transferability on a blockchain, make NFTs an attractive technology to integrate into video games. NFTs have been implemented...more
2/11/2022
/ Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Financial Markets ,
Gaming ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Sales Tax ,
Video Games ,
Virtual Currency
Artificial intelligence (AI) is an increasingly important technology within the investment management industry. AI has been used in a variety of ways—including as the newest strategy for attempts to "beat the market" by...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") recently won a high-profile victory when a federal court held that there is a substantial likelihood that the SEC will prevail at trial in proving that "Grams"—the digital asset...more
Imagine a blockchain promoter offers to sell virtual currency that will be developed in the future and allows purchasers to put down a small amount of the purchase price now and pay the rest later, with delivery to...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) mission has three principal components: investor protection; maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets; and facilitating capital formation.2 The SEC’s regulation of...more
Until September 30, 2019, Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) enforcement actions in the crypto industry conveyed a consistent message: most crypto is a security, and if a token issuer does not follow the registration...more
10/18/2019
/ Blockchain ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ,
Penalties ,
Registration Requirement ,
Regulation A ,
Regulation D ,
Securities Act of 1933 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations ,
Settlement Offer ,
Token Sales
This white paper discusses considerations related to conducting a token offering under Regulation A under the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”). The benefit of this strategy is that it can allow broad...more
10/2/2019
/ Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Howey ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
Offering Statements ,
Public Offerings ,
Regulation A ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Securities Act of 1933 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Token Sales ,
White Papers
Happy New Year from all of us in the WSGR Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Practice Group! The industry learned a lot about the regulation of digital assets in 2018, and we published some of our observations about those...more