Crypto in the Crosshairs: What Regulatory Themes Characterized 2020?
Cryptocurrency, Legitimate Uses, and Legal Issues
Episode 3 - The Freeman Law Project - Cryptocurrency Regulation and Taxation: A Brief Primer
Summer Enforcement Action Review; Raising Money in a Pandemic - Investment Management Roundtable Discussion
Investment Management and Private Funds Roundtable: TALF 2020 and PPP Update
Videocast: Asset management regulation in 2020 videocast series – FinTech initiatives
Theoretical No More: Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrencies and the Tax, Legal and Business Implications
Cryptocurrency enforcement continues to be a high priority for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 2023, the SEC administration under Chair Gary Gensler brought a total of 46 cryptocurrency-related...more
More than 50% increase in SEC cryptocurrency-related enforcement actions in 2023 over 2022. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues to view cryptocurrency-related enforcement as a top priority, bringing 46...more
The organizers of an initial coin offering (ICO) recently won dismissal of an investor’s fraud claims by establishing that their public risk disclosures negated the investor’s claims of reliance on alleged misstatements. The...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
NFTs Expand on Social Media, Celebrity NFT Endorsements Scrutinized - According to reports, one of the world’s largest social media platforms recently expanded its NFT (non-fungible token) initiative, allowing users in...more
NFT Initiatives Continue, Cryptocurrency Advertising Restrictions Ease - In New Dehli, a blockchain-powered platform is hosting an exhibition displaying 27 art pieces by Bengal-born artist Lalu Prasad Shaw. According to a...more
Reports Address CBDCs and Security Tokens, Banks Launch Crypto Initiatives - A recent report released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) analyzes results from a survey of 50 central banks in the first quarter of...more
In a recent judgment, the English court has demonstrated that pre-emptive remedies are available to litigants who have been subject to cryptoasset fraud even where the alleged fraud originates outside the UK.1 From orders...more
Ethereum 2.0 Moves Closer to Launch, Blockchain Identity Solutions Announced - After having launched last week, the deposit contract for the newest upgrade to the Ethereum blockchain, Ethereum 2.0, now tops out at over 50,000...more
U.S. Crypto Exchange Approved as Wyoming Bank, MSB Regulations to be Simplified - This week Kraken, a major U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it has received approval from the State of Wyoming to form a Special...more
In 2019, regulators continued to consider whether and how to regulate blockchain technology. After the two previous years that included a high number of initial coin offerings (ICOs), many of which involved allegedly...more
A Complaint filed by the SEC in the Southern District of New York last week reminds us that in the area of securities law violations there is not much new under the sun. Even though the action against Eran Eyal and...more
Ethereum Fork Implemented, Exchanges Expand Services, New Bitcoin Network Data - The Ethereum network’s Istanbul hard fork went forward late last week with the support of node operators, miners and cryptocurrency exchanges. ...more
Bombay Hair tools, Daniel Wellington watches, FabFitFun boxes, HelloFresh meal kits, SugarBearHair vitamins, and more. Spend any time on Instagram and chances are you will encounter influencers promoting these products,...more
On February 14, 2019, the Southern District of California entered a preliminary injunction prohibiting Blockvest, LLC (“Blockvest”), a company set up to exchange cryptocurrencies, and its founder, Reginald Buddy Ringgold, III...more
Over the past two years, prices for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets have experienced extreme gains and declines, while billions of dollars have been raised through Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”). In this dynamic...more
Way back in 2017, the SEC obtained an emergency asset freeze against an internet-based ICO involving certain Canadian residents, who had raised over $15 million on a variety of social media sites through an alleged fraudulent...more
From Elon Musk’s tweets to Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled’s promotion of cryptocurrencies, 2018 was, to say the least, an interesting year in regulatory enforcement news. Even if all you do is win, win, win, no matter what,...more
New cryptocurrencies and tokens have been popping up all over the place, leading the SEC to set up an initial coin offering (ICO) section on its website and to promote recent enforcement actions in the digital currency space....more
We’ll say this—it’s not been dull over in the UK. There’s Wimbledon, the march of the Three Lions, oh, and also, less than a day after Brexit secretary David Davis and a key associate quit her government, PM May’s foreign...more
Last week, a broker-dealer was fined US $1.575 million by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and other self-regulatory organizations for not complying with market access requirements for gatekeepers, while the...more
Spotify’s unconventional (non-IPO) public listing is off and running, and though it’s early, it sure feels as if the risk was a good one, with the market valuing the company north of $30 billion....more
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) scored a victory in its effort to assert jurisdiction over portions of the cryptocurrency and initial coin offering (ICO) markets last week, as a federal district judge...more
CFTC Sues Unregistered Company and Promoters of Fake Virtual Coin for Alleged Fraud and Operating Purported Ponzi Scheme: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission disclosed that it filed an enforcement action on January 16...more
As in the past, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) marked the beginning of the new year with the release of its 2018 Regulatory and Examination Priorities Letter (the “Letter”). Similar to prior letters,...more