Sky Blog
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
On September 19, 2016, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan of the Southern District of New York denied defendant Anthony R. Murgio’s motion to dismiss charges brought against him for, among other things, operating a Bitcoin exchange in violation of …
In State of Florida v. Espinoza, a trial court in Miami recently dismissed all charges against an individual Bitcoin exchanger, who was arrested in a sting operation after agreeing to sell bitcoins to an undercover detective who purported to …
A recent enforcement action reflects the CFTC’s expanded jurisdiction and provides further clarity on what constitutes “actual delivery” in cryptocurrency trading.
On June 2, 2016, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) issued an order (the Bitfinex Order) filing, and …
Six things every investor, start-up, financial institution and payment processor should know about the future regulation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency derivatives.
With the quickly developing market for cryptocurrency derivatives and seemingly inexhaustive possibilities of applications on the blockchain protocol, …
The pace of regulation and enforcement actions relating to virtual currencies has continued to pick up during the fall of 2014. We discuss below the following recent developments: (1) updated guidance from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network on the applicability …