Navigating New Compliance Challenges: The Impact of the Money Transmitter Modernization Act on Payroll Processing - Payments Pros – The Payments Law Podcast
As the world now knows, Binance Holdings Limited, doing business as Binance.com (“Binance” or the “Company”), has entered into a plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”)....more
Blockchain analysis is a powerful tool that provides insight into what is happening on a blockchain network. Who is trading with whom? Which wallets are most active on decentralized finance exchanges? Which wallets are...more
On July 28th, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), reintroduced the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act (the “Act”), legislation aimed at closing...more
Legislation Targets Unhosted Wallets, Validators and Digital Asset ATMs - On July 28th, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), reintroduced the...more
On January 30, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Roger Marshall (R-KS) sent a follow-up letter to a California-based bank asking for additional responses to questions related to the bank’s...more
On December 14, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) introduced the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022 (the Act) that would extend anti-money laundering and countering of the financing...more
U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Roger Marshall are introducing the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act (the "Act"), with the aim of bringing the crypto and digital asset ecosystem under existing anti-money laundering...more
Government attitude and definition - As in many countries, the regulation of cryptocurrencies in Canada is divided among various levels of government and administrative agencies, depending on the nature of the activity...more
The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) has recently published new financial services amending regulations and various amended rulebook modules. These wide-ranging measures update ADGM’s rules on environmental matters, virtual...more
On September 16, 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury published a report, “The Future of Money and Payments” (Report), in response to the President’s March 2022 Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of...more
On May 19, Alessio Evangelista, the Associate Director of the Enforcement and Compliance Division of FinCEN, presented at the Chainalaysis Links Conference on the topic of “Intersection of Cryptocurrencies and National...more
On May 24, 2022, nine Canadian cryptocurrency companies—Wealthsimple, CoinSmart, Netcoins, Shakepay, VirgoCX, Tetra Trust, BlocPal, Balance and Coinsquare—announced their membership in the Travel Rule Universal Solution...more
Recent news coverage has highlighted two potentially watershed moments in the FinTech revolution: the rise of Decentralized Finance (“DeFi”) that challenges both traditional FinTechs and legacy financial institutions alike,...more
Entities dealing in "virtual currencies", money services businesses (MSBs) and other reporting entities (REs) to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC) will become subject to new compliance...more
The incoming Biden team will need to quickly address significant digital asset issues, including a major enforcement action and a significant proposed FinCEN rule initiated in the final days of the outgoing administration. ...more
On January 7, 2021, the original 15-day comment period ended for a proposed rule announced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that would impose new reporting, recordkeeping...more
A new proposal would subject financial institutions and exchanges to onerous recordkeeping and reporting requirements for certain digital currency transactions. In a surprise release in the waning days of the Trump...more
A controversial proposed rule from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network would bring bank-like regulation of virtual asset transactions, including the first broadly-applied AML reporting requirement in at least two...more
Just before the Christmas holidays, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued proposed rulemaking entitled “Requirements for Certain Transactions Involving Convertible Virtual...more
On December 18, 2020, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to establish new requirements for convertible virtual currency (CVC) and legal tender digital asset (LTDA)...more
Building off a 2018 alert outlining cyber threats generally, and following the federal indictment for money laundering of the founders of the offshore cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX, on Oct. 8, 2020, the U.S. Department of...more
On October 8, 2020, Attorney General William Barr announced the release of a Cryptocurrency Enforcement Framework produced by the Department of Justice (DOJ) Cyber-Digital Task Force. The 83-page framework is intended to help...more
First in a Two-Post Series - The U.S. Department of Treasury (“Treasury”) has issued its 2020 National Strategy for Combating Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing (“2020 Strategy”)....more
With the emergence of digital assets, the question has arisen whether digital assets held in “wallets” in foreign exchanges need to be reported on Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Form 8938, Statement of Specified Foreign...more
On October 11, 2019, the heads of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC"), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ("FinCEN"), issued a joint statement...more