On April 28, bipartisan lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced legislation, allowing the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to oversee cryptocurrency spot markets. The legislation intends to create a framework to fill the regulatory gaps between the CFTC and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) digital asset marketplace and related regimes.
On May 4, following in the footsteps of President Biden’s recent executive order (Federal EO), California Governor Gavin Newsom issued his own blockchain-related executive order (CA EO), making California the first among the states to endorse a proactive, harmonized approach to regulate blockchain technology. The CA EO assesses how existing state and public institutions may
On April 28, the Joint Chiefs of Global Tax Enforcement (the J5), a global joint operational taxation group consisting of Australia, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and the United States, issued an intelligence bulletin (Bulletin), enumerating its perceived dangers of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
NFTs, ERC-20, and Fungibility
Cryptocurrencies and NFTs are similar in the sense that
On April 6, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) released a draft of his proposed stablecoin legislation titled, Stablecoin Transparency of Reserves and Uniform Safe Transactions Act, or the Stablecoin TRUST Act. Toomey, the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, has been a vocal proponent of blockchain innovation, and his recent bill calls for a deft
On March 31, a New York federal court dismissed a proposed securities class-action lawsuit filed against Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The lawsuit, one of a host of similar actions brought against cryptocurrency exchanges in 2020, was filed by token buyers who purchased cryptocurrency on Binance’s platform.
The plaintiffs asserted that Binance had violated
On April 7, in front of American University’s Kogod School of Business Center for Innovation, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen addressed the Biden administration’s forthcoming legislative approach to digital assets, as we discussed here, as well as the digitization of the American economy, which Yellen assessed through the lens of five lessons she
On March 17, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Mark Warner (D-VA), and Jon Tester (D-MT) introduced the Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act (Act) in an attempt to ensure blacklisted Russian individuals and businesses do not use cryptocurrency to evade economic sanctions.
“In order for the sanctions levied by the United States and
On March 9, President Biden signed an Executive Order (the Order) to establish the first comprehensive federal digital asset strategy for the U.S., which would promote digital asset innovation while balancing benefits and associated risks. The order directs the Justice Department, U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,
On February 21, President Biden issued an executive order blocking property of certain persons, and prohibiting transactions regarding Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine. The following day, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued restrictions on activities with Russian individuals and entities. On February 25, these lists were updated to include political leaders
On February 4, the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) released the “Study of the Facilitation of Money Laundering and Terror Finance through the Trade in Works of Art” (Study). The Study assesses the various risks of the high-value art market based on its propensities for money laundering and illicit financing.
Specifically, the Study