Powering Sustainable Crypto: A General Counsel’s View
Crypto & Politics: Insights from Former Congressman David McIntosh
Exploring the AI and Crypto Intersection
Ask a CFIUS Expert: Is Crypto Spying on Us?
Dogecoin’s Day in Court
A Tale of Two Crypto Cases
Unpacking the Lummis-Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act: Implications for the Digital Asset Industry — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Podcast: Is Cryptocurrency a Security (like an orange grove)?
Navigating the Regulatory Waters: The SEC's Wells Notice to Uniswap and its Impact on DeFi — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Will Resiliency Carry the Digital Asset Sector Through 2024: Federal Legislative Developments and OFAC Consent Orders — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Will Resiliency Carry the Digital Asset Sector Through 2024: State-Level Developments — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Will Resiliency Carry the Digital Asset Sector Through 2024: Navigating the 2023 Regulatory Landscape — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
The Justice Insiders Podcast - Demystifying Sentences for White Collar Crimes: What's Next for SBF
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast Episode: The Federal Trade Commission: Looking Back at 2023 and Looking Ahead to 2024 and Beyond
No Password Required: Security Analyst at Rice University, WiCys Global Book Club Host, and No Password Required’s Poet Laureate
Unraveling the Crypto Code: California's New DFAL Explained – The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Episode 302 -- Matt Stankiewicz on DOJ's Massive Criminal Settlement with Cryptocurrency Exchange Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao
The Justice Insiders Podcast: The Sam Bankman-Fried Trial: Defendants Testifying (Poorly), FOMO, and How to Actually Blame Lawyers
FINCast Ep. 38 – The Future of Crypto: A Conversation with Coinbase’s Faryar Shirzad
Analyzing the Treasury's Illicit Finance Risk Assessment of Decentralized Finance - The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Crypto’s two calling cards, decentralization and anonymity, can lead to abuses, such as money laundering and tax evasion. The U.S. Treasury has long combatted crypto money laundering...more
U.S. Companies Announce Crypto Cashback and NFT Ticketing Initiatives - According to recent reports, a major U.S. credit card company has partnered with Swoo, a mobile wallet blending traditional and crypto payments, to...more
Cryptocurrency, with its anonymity and decentralization, has revolutionized financial transactions. However, it has also opened doors for illicit activities, such as terrorist financing. Below we explore the role of...more
The U.S. authorities are increasingly taking actions against big-name crypto mixers for potential violations of sanctions regulations. On November 29, 2023, the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control...more
On November 21, 2023, the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced its largest settlement in history with the virtual currency exchange Binance. This almost-billion dollar settlement is a part of a larger...more
As the world now knows, Binance Holdings Limited, doing business as Binance.com (“Binance” or the “Company”), has entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”)....more
Crypto Firms Continue to Launch New Initiatives Across Markets - In a recent press release, digital asset infrastructure firm Fireblocks announced its acquisition of BlockFold, “a smart contract development and...more
In two prior posts, this blog tracked the ongoing intrigue of how the various branches of the United States government interact with blockchain and cryptocurrency organizations. We discussed the Wyoming law allowing...more
Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer, recently suffered two major setbacks in federal regulatory efforts to block its use and prosecute its founders. First, a federal district court threw out a lawsuit challenging the...more
District Court Upholds Tornado Cash Sanctions, DOJ Charges Founders - On August 17, a Texas federal court found that Tornado Cash, a crypto mixer (which obscures the source of crypto transactions) is an entity that can be...more
ETH Staking Data Published, USDC Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol Launches - New data reflects that the recent amount of staking withdrawals on Ethereum has been balanced by a roughly equal amount of deposits. According to...more
Cryptocurrencies have been making the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Their values have plummeted leaving investors out of pocket. Exchanges, lenders, and other entities in the crypto ecosystem have gone bust. Numerous...more
Anatoly Legkodymov, Russian founder of Hong Kong-registered cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato Limited ("Bitzlato"), was arrested on January 17 based on an Amended Complaint filed by the Department of Justice ("DOJ") charging...more
Despite the minimal regulatory enforcement actions against blockchain game companies and NFT issuers, now is NOT the time to become complacent about regulatory issues. As indicated below, many U.S. agencies are increasing...more
On November 28, 2022, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that Payward, Inc. d/b/a Kraken, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, agreed to pay $362,158.70 to settle charges relating to its...more
New Research and Surveys Address CBDCs, Institutional Crypto Investment - Staff from the board of governors of the U.S. central bank recently published a research paper addressing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)....more
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced (here and here) yesterday that virtual currency exchange Payward, Inc. – better known as Kraken – has agreed to pay $362,158.70 in order to settle its potential civil...more
On October 11, 2022, the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced settlements with Bittrex Inc. (Bittrex). The settlements arise from violations of...more
Executive Summary - The North Korean threat to the crypto ecosystem is the highest form of immediate risk to the crypto-economy driven by a regime that seeks to profit from its misuse to reinforce its regime and fuel all its...more
This summer was a busy one for cryptocurrency regulators, with aggressive actions potentially signaling an increase in consumer protection compliance activity. In August alone, the New York Department of Financial Services...more
On Aug. 8, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash for allegedly helping launder more than $7 billion worth of cryptocurrency over three years.1...more
Takeaways - ..The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued the first-ever smart contracts sanction, and its decision to sanction a nonperson may be challenged in court. ..The U.S....more
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) recently made the unprecedented move of sanctioning a smart contract — a decentralized digital currency mixer called “Tornado Cash” — along with certain cryptocurrency addresses...more
NY DFS Approves Crypto Platform, Prepaid Crypto Card to Launch in Argentina - According to a press release this week, the New York State Department of Financial Services (NY DFS) has authorized two subsidiaries of Zero...more
The US Treasury opens a Pandora’s box of legal issues as it targets a decentralized finance protocol used for both licit and illicit means. On August 8, 2022, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets...more