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: Under the existing legal regimes, decentralized autonomous organizations ("DAO" or "DAOs") have been viewed as a way to hedge against regulatory action by way of a decentralized structure. The...more
In June 2022, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced the Responsible Financial Innovation Act (the "Bill"), one of most comprehensive responses by Congress to date with respect to digital...more
In this latest White Paper on our Bill analysis, we underscore headline proposals in the Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act (the “Bill”) regarding consumer protection standards (Title V) and cybersecurity...more
In Short -
The Situation: Following the release of the Responsible Financial Innovation Act (the "Lummis-Gillibrand Bill"), four senators on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry released their own...more
In this latest White Paper on our Bill analysis, we underscore headline proposals in the Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act (the "Bill") regarding the issuance and regulation of a "payment stablecoin,"...more
On June 7, 2022, U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) introduced the Responsible Financial Innovation Act (the "Bill"), which proposes a regulatory framework for digital assets across nine titles...more
California's governor issued an executive order requiring state agencies, led by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, to create a "transparent" regulatory framework for blockchain technologies and digital...more
5/11/2022
/ Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
California ,
California Consumer Financial Protection Law (CCFPL) ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Digital Currency ,
Executive Orders ,
Financial Instruments ,
Financial Markets ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Financial Transactions ,
Framework Agreement ,
Investment Opportunities ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Transparency Directive ,
Virtual Currency
The digital asset industry has now met the regulatory state. Those interested in building digital asset businesses that operate in the United States thus need to be aware of a vital tool for resisting regulatory overreach by...more
12/13/2021
/ Bitcoin ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Financial Instruments ,
Financial Markets ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Financial Transactions ,
Investment Products ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Virtual Currency
The interagency "policy sprints" are designed to give banks guidance on how to navigate crypto-assets moving forward.
On November 23, 2021, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Federal Deposit Insurance...more
On October 18, 2021, New York Attorney General Letitia James directed two virtual currency lending platforms to immediately cease their unregistered and allegedly unlawful activities in New York and sent letters to three...more
10/29/2021
/ Cryptocurrency ,
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Markets ,
Financial Services Industry ,
Lenders ,
New York ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Securities Transactions ,
Stablecoins ,
State Attorneys General ,
Virtual Currency
Cryptocurrencies are quickly becoming part of the financial mainstream, with institutional and retail investors alike adding them to their portfolios in record numbers. State legislatures are trying to keep up with this...more
The Situation: Non-fungible tokens are an emerging digital asset class that present a unique set of commercial, regulatory, and other legal considerations.
The Result: The current U.S. regulatory and legal framework is...more
5/14/2021
/ Art ,
Asset Class ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
FinCEN ,
FinTech ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Online Marketplace ,
Virtual Currency
The Situation: While investigating a website for criminal activities, federal agents traced Bitcoin transactions and issued a subpoena to a virtual-currency exchange to identify customers of the site. Using that information,...more
8/12/2020
/ Bitcoin ,
Blockchain ,
Carpenter v US ,
Criminal Investigations ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Cyber Crimes ,
Fourth Amendment ,
Popular ,
Probable Cause ,
Search Warrant ,
Subpoenas ,
Virtual Currency
The Situation: The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN") released interpretive guidance concerning the application of the Bank Secrecy Act ("BSA") and the anti-money laundering ("AML") regulations to certain...more
6/21/2019
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Bank Secrecy Act ,
Blockchain ,
Civil Monetary Penalty ,
Convertible Virtual Currencies (CVCs) ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
FinCEN ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Money Services Business ,
p2p ,
Peer-to-Peer ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) ,
Virtual Currency
The Situation: For the first time, the New York State Department of Financial Services ("NYDFS") publicly announced that it had denied a cryptocurrency exchange's applications for virtual currency and money transmission...more
4/25/2019
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
BitLicense ,
Blockchain ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Money Transmitter ,
NYDFS ,
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) ,
Token Sales ,
Virtual Currency
Do you have questions about blockchain technology? Watch "What is Blockchain and How is it Used?," the first in a series of 12 short Jones Day Presents: Blockchain videos. In this program, Jones Day partner Mark Rasmussen...more
The Situation: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a special unit to bring enforcement actions against several forms of cyber misconduct.
The Result: The Cyber Unit has already brought enforcement...more
12/20/2017
/ Blockchain ,
Digital Currency ,
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Ethereum ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities ,
Virtual Currency
The Situation: Promoters of two recent initial coin offerings face charges of investor fraud brought by the SEC, after allegedly misrepresenting the assets purportedly backing the offerings, exaggerating the amount of funds...more
10/11/2017
/ Asset Freeze ,
Digital Currency ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) ,
Investment Fraud ,
Investors ,
Misrepresentation ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities ,
Virtual Currency