Creating A User Friendly Blockchain with Andrew Levine, CEO, Koinos Group
An Introduction to Crypto for Financial Services Professionals
Crypto Offerings Launch by Major Investment Bank, Asset Manager and Insurer - According to a recent report, a major multinational investment bank and financial services firm is now allowing its investment advisors to pitch...more
One will be forgiven for not closely following the myriad crypto developments in recent years. Mixed signals from regulators have complicated matters: some cryptocurrencies may be securities, some are commodities, some...more
ollowing the approval and launch of Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (EFTs) in January 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved eight Ethereum ETFs for listing and trading on SEC-regulated exchanges on...more
On June 15, 2023, the Polsinelli Blockchain+ team put out our first Bi-Weekly rundown of some of the key stories in the Web3, blockchain, and crypto ecosystems curated by Polsinelli attorneys navigating the intersections of...more
On March 23, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) formally announced its approval of eight “Ether-Based Exchange Traded Products” (the “ETPs”). This announcement comes a little over four months after the...more
Crypto assets are some of the most rapidly evolving and increasingly adopted assets in the world. Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is emerging as a blockchain-based alternative to traditional banking and financial services and...more
Hyperledger Announces Financial Group, Exchange Adds Custody Service - According to a recent press release, Hyperledger Foundation, a global ecosystem for enterprise-grade blockchain technologies, has announced that two...more
Financial Firms Complete Blockchain Pilot, UK Approves Crypto ETNs - A recent press release announced completion of the Canton Network pilot, “a first-of-its-kind program demonstrating the interoperability of twenty-two...more
Cryptocurrency, a digital form of currency that uses cryptography for security, has become a significant part of the global financial landscape. As such, it has also become an important consideration in estate planning. This...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved proposals from three stock exchanges to list and trade shares of 11 spot bitcoin-based products (the “Spot BTC Approval”). Following the Spot BTC Approval, the...more
The New Year is upon us, which means plenty of news stories looking back at blockchain events in 2023, such as this one (From NFTs to XRP: the biggest crypto stories of 2023 (Axios)), this one (The Year that Cryptocurrency...more
Starting July 1, 2025, any person or entity engaged in a “digital financial asset business activity” within California or with a California resident will be required to obtain a license from the California Department of...more
Last month, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced settled charges against three decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols for various registration and related violations under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA)...more
Federal and state regulators have taken an increased interest in regulating cryptocurrencies, digital assets, and the larger blockchain ecosystem. This landscape is opaque and rapidly evolving, and many industry participants...more
As noted in our previous alerts “Marketing Crypto-Assets in and Into Europe: MiCA, the EU’s New Uniform Crypto Code” and “Doing Crypto Business in Europe: MiCA, the EU’s New Uniform Crypto Code – Part 2”, the European Union...more
This week, a federal court in California issued an 80-page opinion that painstakingly walks through claims made against several celebrities who had promoted the Ethereum Max (EMAX) cryptocurrency, also called tokens. The...more
European Bank Launches Stablecoin; Financial Firms Expand Crypto Products - A subsidiary of a major European financial services firm recently launched EUR CoinVertible (EURCV), an Ethereum ERC20 stablecoin backed 1:1 by...more
On March 29, the National Futures Association (“NFA”) promulgated Compliance Rule 2-51, setting forth Requirements for Members and Associates Engaged in Activities Involving Digital Asset Commodities, which includes both...more
Lately there has been some skepticism regarding the stability of cryptocurrencies. This may be in part due to the spectacular Q3/Q4 crypto had in 2022 after a meteoric rise earlier that year. With the disclaimer that I am an...more
In his famous 2018 speech, William Hinman, Digital Asset Transactions: When Howey Met Gary (Plastic), the Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), asked...more
As discussed in Part I of this series, Ordinals are a pioneering new method of utilizing the Bitcoin blockchain that will usher in new and innovative use cases on Bitcoin. As promised, in Part II we will discuss the...more
The NFT community has been humming in 2023 after the recent rise in Bitcoin NFT mints. Ordinals, a non-fungible token (“NFT”) protocol, sent the community buzzing in January 2023 when it launched on the Bitcoin blockchain (as...more
There is a lot of talk about blockchains these days, and in this episode of “Lawyers With Game” hosts Darius Gambino and Angie de Cespedes from Saul Ewing’s Video Gaming and Esports Practice talk with Andrew Levine, CEO,...more
White House Addresses Crypto Risks; Blockchain Firm Wins Air Force Contract - The White House issued a statement last week briefly outlining the Biden administration’s road map to mitigate the risks of cryptocurrencies,...more
Online cryptocurrency promotion—and promotion on social media in particular—has garnered national media attention in recent months. First, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it had entered into a...more