A 2024 CFTC enforcement action settlement that may have introduced a new test for when the Commodity Exchange Act and the agency's regulations apply on a cross-border basis concerned then-CFTC Commissioner and now Acting CFTC...more
6/2/2025
/ CFTC ,
Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) ,
Cross-Border Transactions ,
Derivatives ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Markets ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Interpretive Letters ,
Investment Portfolios ,
Jurisdiction ,
Market Participants ,
New Guidance ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Settlement
The House Committees on Financial Services and Agriculture have unveiled a discussion draft for a new comprehensive U.S. crypto market structure bill, aiming to establish clear regulatory boundaries between the U.S....more
5/14/2025
/ Capital Raising ,
CFTC ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ,
Digital Assets ,
Financial Markets ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Committee ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Securities Regulation ,
Stablecoins
The Federal Reserve Board ("Board") softened its stance on regulation of crypto activity by banking organizations by rescinding supervisory letters that created hurdles for crypto-asset activities and by joining the Office of...more
4/28/2025
/ Banks ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
FDIC ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Institutions ,
FinTech ,
Investment ,
New Guidance ,
OCC ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
Regulatory Reform
The Trump administration continues its efforts to relax digital asset regulation, including most recently by exempting decentralized finance ("DeFi") apps and wallets from tax reporting and through Securities and Exchange...more
4/15/2025
/ Cryptocurrency ,
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ,
Digital Assets ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
IRS ,
Offerings ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Tax Liability ,
Trump Administration
As the Trump administration and Congress seek to establish clear digital asset regulation, uncertainty remains on whether federal agencies consider stablecoins to be "securities" under federal law....more
The FDIC has rescinded an earlier Financial Institution Letter establishing a prior notification requirement for FDIC-supervised institutions that wish to engage in specified crypto-related activities and has clarified that...more
4/3/2025
/ Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Deregulation ,
Digital Assets ,
FDIC ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
New Guidance ,
OCC ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Rescission
In a break from the typical acting agency chairman, Acting Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC") Chairman Caroline Pham has taken several significant actions, signaled several more, and set the agency on a path to...more
3/26/2025
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
CFTC ,
Comment Period ,
Commodities ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fraud ,
Futures ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Trump Administration
As Congress moves to enact comprehensive stablecoin legislation under the Trump administration, both the Senate and the House of Representatives have updated their respective payment stablecoin bills. Our recent Commentary...more
3/18/2025
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Bank Secrecy Act ,
Digital Assets ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Committee ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Financial Transactions ,
FinTech ,
Payment Systems ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Stablecoins ,
U.S. Treasury
In recent years, U.S. federal bank regulators significantly limited banks' authority to engage in crypto-asset activities, including participating in public blockchains, owning digital assets as principal, and even providing...more
President Trump's recent executive order "Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology" promoted the development of dollar-backed stablecoins as official U.S. policy. To facilitate this policy, Congress...more
3/3/2025
/ Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Federal Reserve ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
FinTech ,
OCC ,
Payment Systems ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Stablecoins ,
Trump Administration
The United States lacks a regulatory framework geared toward digital assets. This raises consumer protection concerns, causes regulatory turf battles and duplicative enforcement actions, impedes innovation, and puts the...more
President Trump signed an executive order ("EO") titled "Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology" that signals a radical shift in the federal government's posture towards digital assets and the...more
The ruling that the SEC acted arbitrarily in denying Coinbase's crypto rulemaking petition, issued in the waning days of the Gensler-era SEC, invites swift action under an Atkins-led SEC....more
The Situation: On September 17, 2024, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC") approved a proposed rule ("the Proposal") that would establish new recordkeeping requirements for FDIC-insured depository institutions...more
The Second Circuit recently revived a securities class action against the crypto exchange Binance Holdings Ltd., holding that plaintiffs plausibly alleged their transactions on the exchange were "domestic," as required by the...more
Proposed regulations addressing new tax reporting requirements for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets have been issued by the IRS and Treasury....more
In Short -
The Situation: Recently, two judges in Southern District of New York were required to apply the Howey test in separate cases to decide whether sales of certain crypto assets were investment contracts, and thus...more
8/22/2023
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Due Process ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Howey ,
Investment Contract ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Popular ,
Ripple ,
Securities Act of 1933 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Regulation ,
Stablecoins
In Short -
The Situation: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC" or "Commission") has reopened the comment period for its January 2022 proposal to amend Exchange Act Rule 3b-16 to broadly expand the...more
In Short -
The Situation: Regulatory "sandboxes" are trending. They represent a unique approach to regulation that permits selected companies to test and experiment with new and innovative products and services....more
In Short -
The Situation: For the first time, the Economic Report of the President (the "Report") includes a chapter on digital assets....more
4/5/2023
/ Blockchain ,
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDCs) ,
CFTC ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
FedNow ,
Financial Markets ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
In Short -
The Situation: Following a string of bankruptcies among virtual currency firms, the New York Department of Financial Services has issued guidance on the practices and procedures it expects from certain...more
In Short -
The Situation: The Federal Reserve Board ("Board") has issued a new policy statement ("Policy Statement") imposing limits, including Board approval requirements, on digital asset activities and other novel...more
In Short -
The Situation: Decentralized finance ("DeFi") is a rapidly growing sector that, by definition, eschews centralized financial institutions altogether. Misconduct that has accompanied that growth has drawn the...more
In Short -
The Situation: Since clarifying the legal permissibility of certain crypto activities in 2020 and early 2021, the Federal banking agencies have begun to tighten regulatory scrutiny of such activities, warning...more
In Short -
The Situation: On 11 March 2022, Dubai Law No. 4 of 2022 Regulating Virtual Assets in the Emirate of Dubai (the "Law") came into effect. The Law establishes the foundation of a regulatory regime for virtual assets...more