Facebook’s Libra Heightens Debate Over the Regulation of Cryptocurrencies

By Hadar Y. Jabotinsky August 16, 2019 by renholding

Cryptocurrencies like Ether, DAO, Bitcoin and Facebook’s Libra are electronically generated and stored currencies by which users can trade real or virtual objects with one another, bypassing traditional central clearinghouses. Given that these cryptocurrencies are starting to replace some national …

Riding the Mania of Blockchain: Public Firms’ Speculative 8-K Disclosures

By Stephanie F. Cheng, Gus De Franco, Haibo Jiang and Pengkai Lin August 7, 2019 by renholding

The price of Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency based on blockchain technology, increased dramatically from less than a penny when it was launched in 2009 to $900 in January 2017 and peaked at over $19,500 in December 2017. This rise coincided with …

SEC Commissioner Discusses Cross-Border Cooperation in Digital-Asset Regulation

By Hester M. Peirce August 6, 2019 by renholding

Thank you, Robby [Greene], for that kind intro. I am delighted to see that Robby, once my research assistant, has clearly gone on to bigger and better things. I also am delighted to be here in Singapore, by some accounts

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Libra: The Regulatory Challenges Facebook Ignored

By Georges Ugeux July 11, 2019 by renholding

The announcement on June 18 by Facebook of what it calls “a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people” was sure to receive immediate attention. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is now on a global …

Blockchain Developers and Fiduciary Duty: An Ill-Fitting Framework

By Raina S. Haque, Rodrigo Seira Silva-Herzog, Brent A. Plummer and Nelson M. Rosario June 21, 2019 by renholding

By enabling new modes of human interaction, technological advancements catalyze the evolution of regulatory frameworks, tools, and approaches. The rate at which computer technology evolves outpaces that of legislation and rule-making. Our economy is increasingly structured not only by traditional …

SEC Commissioner Peirce Talks Digital Assets: How We “Howey”

By Hester M. Peirce May 17, 2019 by renholding

One year ago, I gave a speech—appropriately in Southern California—called “Beaches and Bitcoin.”[1] At that time—not so long ago in analog time but eons ago in digital time—the burning question was how to decide when issuing tokens constituted an

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Debevoise Discusses Possible EU Approach to ICOs and Crypto-Assets

By Klaudius Heda, Clarisse Hannotin, Dr. Oliver Krauß and Dr. Friedrich Popp January 30, 2019 by abirvarma

In the first week of 2019, both the European Securities and Markets Authority (“ESMA”) and the European Banking Authority (“EBA”) issued reports advising EU legislators on the regulation of “crypto-assets” and initial coin offerings (“ICOs”). The European Supervisory Authorities (“ESAs”), …

Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Schemes

By Tao Li, Baolian Wang and Donghwa Shin January 7, 2019 by renholding

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) have recently emerged as a popular method of financing blockchain-related startups. In an ICO, a startup creates and distributes its digital tokens, typically in exchange for Bitcoin, Ethereum, or fiat currencies such as U.S. dollars to …

Bitcoin Futures: From Self-Certification to Systemic Risk

By Lee Reiners December 18, 2018 by renholding

December 2017 marked a milestone in the short history of virtual currency. On Friday, December 1, 2017, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. (CME) and the CBOE Futures Exchange (CFE) self-certified new contracts for cash-settled bitcoin futures products. The self-certification process …

The Role of Disclosure in the Unregulated Crypto Market

By Thomas Bourveau, Atif Ellahie, Emmanuel T. De George and Daniele Macciocchi July 10, 2018 by renholding

Our new research paper studies the issuers of unregulated crypto-tokens such as EOS and Tether. We examine two dimensions: the success of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) process, and the capital market patterns following the listing of the tokens on …

Bitcoin’s Price Chaos Demonstrates the Importance of Sophisticated Financial Products

By Peter Charles Bassine and Harrison Fregeau June 28, 2018 by renholding

Between January 1 and December 17, 2017, the value of a single Bitcoin skyrocketed from under $1,000 to nearly $20,000. To match Bitcoin’s 1183 percent return during this period, an investor would have needed the equivalent of 38 years’ average …

How to Regulate Bitcoin Futures

By Margaret Ryznar April 26, 2018 by renholding

Bitcoin is a currency, technology, and, most recently, futures product. Several clearinghouses have allowed bitcoin futures trading. For example, CBOE launched trading in bitcoin futures on December 10, 2017, while CME Group did so a week later.[1] NASDAQ and …

Ropes & Gray Discusses the Regulatory Push to Rein in ICO Market

By Christopher Conniff, Michael McGovern, Helen Gugel and Jessica Soricelli March 21, 2018 by renholding

On March 1, 2018, Overstock.com disclosed that its ongoing $250 million initial coin offering has been under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission since February.¹ The investigation appears to be part of a widespread probe pursuant to …

Latham & Watkins Discusses SEC Charges Against BitFunder and the State of Digital Asset Trading

By Wenchi Hu, Vivian Maese and John Sikora March 19, 2018 by renholding

The SEC continues to send messages to the nascent cryptocurrency market. The agency has recently brought enforcement actions and issued a public statement that illustrate the agency’s views on how the federal securities laws apply to crypto or digital asset …

Clifford Chance Discusses the Role of the CFTC in the Regulation of Bitcoin

By David Felsenthal, Daniel Silver, Jesse Overall and Brian Yin February 16, 2018 by charlesbluesky

The remarkable growth and volatility of Bitcoin and other virtual currencies has raised the question of how these markets are regulated. The CFTC has emerged as “the federal overseer of digital currencies like bitcoin,” according to Bloomberg.[1] Other federal …

Cleary Discusses SEC’s Freeze of Allegedly Fraudulent “Decentralized Bank” ICO

By Rahul Mukhi and James Michael Blakemore February 14, 2018 by renholding

On January 30, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced[1] that it had obtained an order from a U.S. District Court in Dallas, Texas, halting an allegedly fraudulent initial coin offering scheme. The SEC’s complaint alleges that …

SEC Chair Clayton Testifies About Virtual Currencies

By Jay Clayton February 8, 2018 by renholding

Chairman Crapo, Ranking Member Brown and distinguished senators of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.[1] I am pleased that the Committee is holding this hearing to bring greater focus to the important issues …

Clifford Chance on France’s Pioneering Blockchain Legal Framework for Unlisted Securities

By Frédérick Lacroix, Sébastien Praicheux and Pierre d'Ormesson January 29, 2018 by Carly Goeman

While blockchain, legally referred to as distributed ledger technology (DLT), or dispositif d’enregistrement électronique partagé (DEEP) in French, was first developed for the creation of virtual currencies such as bitcoin, it is also a technology that allows for …

K&L Gates Discusses the Virtual-Currency Businesses Act and Coming Cryptocurrency Regulation

By Jeremy M. McLaughlin and Eric A. Love November 17, 2017 by charlesbluesky

The Uniform Law Commission (“ULC”) is an organization focused on developing and preparing “non-partisan, well-conceived, and well-drafted” state legislation in areas of state law where there is a perceived need for uniformity. In practice, once the ULC releases proposed state …

K&L Gates Discusses Tax-Free Cryptocurrency Transactions and Reporting Rules

By Elizabeth Crouse, Rachel Trickett, Mary Burke Baker, Rob Crea and Claire White October 2, 2017 by renholding

As cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum become more prevalent in investment circles and acceptable for commercial transactions, the United States Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) has said little other than to label “virtual currencies” as property and state …

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