Navigating 2025: Federal Legislative and Regulatory Updates on Stablecoins and Decentralized Finance — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Compliance Tip of the Day: Use of Blockchain in Compliance
Unpacking the Fifth Circuit's Landmark Tornado Cash Decision — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
A Conversation with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce
Navigating the Dark Side of Crypto: Crime, Compliance, and Consumer Protection – The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Crackdown on DeFi? An Examination of the CFTC's Enforcement Action Against Uniswap — The Crypto Exchange
Hot Topics in International Trade, Wyoming, Blockchain, Crypto, and the Current Landscape of Regulations
Ep. 11 - Crypto & Consumer Protection: Insights from a Former FTC Official
The Current State of Web3 Gaming
From Court to Code: Smart Contracts and Arbitration
Powering Sustainable Crypto: A General Counsel’s View
From Paper to Digital: The California DMV's Leap Into Blockchain Technology — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
El Salvador’s Bitcoin Nation: A Government Insider’s View
Dogecoin’s Day in Court
A Tale of Two Crypto Cases
Unpacking the Lummis-Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act: Implications for the Digital Asset Industry — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Navigating the Regulatory Waters: The SEC's Wells Notice to Uniswap and its Impact on DeFi — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Will Resiliency Carry the Digital Asset Sector Through 2024: Navigating the 2023 Regulatory Landscape — The Crypto Exchange Podcast
Understanding the CFPB's Proposed Digital Payments Larger Participants Rule and Its Implications for Digital Assets — The Consumer Finance Podcast
Hot Topics in International Trade-The Mod Act
On February 27, 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance issued a formal Staff Statement on “meme coins.” In this statement, the SEC staff took the position that typical meme...more
Centralized financial intermediaries are a cornerstone for trading, settling, and clearing securities. Large institutions manage the individual accounts at the front end of these activities, while the Depository Trust &...more
CryptoLink is a compilation of news stories published by outside organizations. Akin aggregates the stories, but the information contained in them does not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of the firm. Akin's...more
The United States is no stranger to stockpiling strategic assets to serve important national interests. The U.S. strategic gold reserve provides financial stability and supports the value of the U.S. dollar...more
On April 21, 2023, the IRS released Chief Counsel Advice Memorandum 202316008 (the “CCA”), which provides that cryptocurrency protocol changes are not treated as realization events and do not give rise to gross income for...more
Since what feels like the beginning of time, cash currency has dominated the business of monetary compensation. Beginning in the 1950’s, cash met one of its toughest competitors: the credit card. Piggybacking off the idea of...more
Scoring a victory for the Securities and Exchange Commission in its efforts to qualify digital tokens as securities, a New Hampshire federal court ruled this week that tokens sold by LBRY Inc., known as LBC, are securities...more
There are widely varying opinions on blockchain and cryptocurrency. Corporate and TMT expert Nicholas Kuria recently spoke to Africa Legal about the impacts of the technology on business, nations and lawyers. Originally...more
Editor’s Note: On August 17, 2022, The Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) under the leadership of Mary Mack and Kaylee Walstad, hosted HaystackID as we collectively shared an educational webcast developed to...more
Few investors made it through 2021 and 2022 without learning of, discussing, or perhaps purchasing, cryptocurrency or other blockchain assets, and the federal agency responsible for regulating the securities industry has...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced yesterday that it would hire 20 additional positions to the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (formerly known as the Cyber Unit) within the Division of Enforcement, increasing...more
A class action lawsuit filed against Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather, and former professional basketball player Paul Pierce earlier this month underscores the need for celebrity endorsers to take care when they approach any...more
Crypto Firms Launch New Services, MIT Seeks to Improve Bitcoin Codebase - A San Francisco-based cryptocurrency custody firm successfully completed an $80 million funding round, following its recent procurement of a federal...more
Bahamas CBDC Integrates with Prepaid Card, Bitcoin Donation Data Published - A major U.S. financial services firm recently announced a collaboration with the Central Bank of The Bahamas to launch a new prepaid card to...more
The Ministry of Economic Development launched a public consultation setting out recommendations for the use of DLT and blockchain in a number of fields, including the regulatory banking and financial industry. ...more
On March 2, Orrick had the pleasure of hosting SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce for a fireside chat discussion at our San Francisco office on the state of blockchain and cryptocurrency, the emerging regulatory landscape and her...more
The battle in federal court between the SEC and Telegram continues to progress at breakneck speed. The SEC commenced its action less than four months ago, on October 11, 2019, by seeking a temporary restraining order against...more
On Oct. 9, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (the “Service”) issued Revenue Ruling 2019-24 concerning the tax consequences of virtual currency hard forks, as well as FAQs on the taxation of virtual currency generally. This...more
On September 30, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that blockchain developer Block.one had agreed to pay a $24 million fine to settle charges that it had engaged in an unregistered offering of securities...more
Five years or so years ago, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) provided its first, and until this week, only formal advice on the taxation of cryptocurrency transactions in Notice 2014-21. This guidance, while helpful in...more
This is Part 3 of a seven-part series of posts looking at some broad legal issues affecting crypto-currencies. ...more
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) issued a “call to action” for countries to do more to tackle enablers of tax crimes. The result of this “call to action” was the establishment of an...more
U.S. Financial Industry Developments - FINRA Requests Comment on Financial Technology Innovation in the Broker-Dealer Industry - On July 30, 2018, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") published a...more
El Jefe de Investigación Criminal del IRS, Don Fort, declaró recientemente: "Es posible utilizar Bitcoin y otras Criptomonedas de la misma manera que las cuentas bancarias extranjeras para facilitar la evasión de impuestos"....more
The cryptocurrency market is exciting to watch. Based on the revolutionary blockchain distributed ledger system, cryptocurrencies have exploded on the marketplace. As with any new “gold rush” to hit a market, cryptocurrency...more