On 3 February 2023, the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Civil Division (the “Court”) handed down judgment in the litigation between Tulip Trading Limited (“TTL”) and a number of core developers of software in respect of four bitcoin networks.

The Court found that it was properly arguable that software

On October 15, 2021, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) issued “Sanctions Compliance Guidance for the Virtual Currency Industry” (the “Guidance”).  The Guidance follows recent guidance and advisory letters directed to the virtual currency industry relating to the risk of facilitating ransomware payments[1] and is OFAC’s most comprehensive virtual currency-specific advisory to date.  In particular, the Guidance directly addresses some simpler interpretive questions, discusses sanctions compliance programs and “best practices,” and provides hints about OFAC’s enforcement priorities going forward.
Continue Reading OFAC Issues Sanctions Guidance to Virtual Currency Industry

On January 4, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) published an interpretive letter (the “Letter”) clarifying that national banks and federal savings associations (“banks”) may engage in and facilitate payment activities through new technological means, including serving as a node in a distributed ledger system such as those utilized by some stablecoins, facilitating customer conversion of fiat currency to or from digital currencies, and issuing stablecoins.

The Letter reasons that payment services are a core banking function, and that independent node verification networks (“INVNs”) and stablecoins are merely new means of effecting pre-existing permissible bank activities.

The letter follows other recent actions by former Acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks to clarify the authority of national banks to engage in certain digital asset activities, including the issuance of two other interpretive letters last year clarifying permissible cryptocurrency-related activities for banks (custodying digital assets and holding certain stablecoin reserves).  The Acting Comptroller, whose resignation became effective today, also spearheaded an initiative to grant national bank and national trust bank charters to fintech companies.

The Letter notes that banks “should consult with OCC supervisors, as appropriate, prior to engaging in these activities.”  This guidance, OCC precedents in expanding permissible bank activities, and the controversy surrounding recent crypto-related charter applications may lead to a deliberative approach by the OCC to banks expanding into these activities.
Continue Reading OCC Affirms Authority of National Banks to Engage in Additional Cryptocurrency-Related Activities, Including Issuing Stablecoins

On July 25, 2019, staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) granted its second no-action letter in the digital asset space to Pocketful of Quarters, Inc. (“POQ”), permitting POQ to sell digital tokens (“Quarters”) recorded on the Ethereum blockchain without satisfying registration requirements under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Acts”). Like the SEC’s prior no-action letter to TurnKey Jet, Inc. (“TKJ”), which permitted TKJ to sell digital tokens pegged to $1.00 for the limited purpose of purchasing air charter services, Quarters will also be sold at a fixed price and limited to a purely consumptive purpose within the Quarters platform.

Due to these similarities, the POQ letter does little to clarify the SEC staff’s most recent guidance, released with the TKJ letter on April 3, 2019, that lists characteristics of a digital token that may affect its classification as a “security” under the Acts (the “Framework”).[1] The POQ letter merely reemphasizes that projects where the platform is already fully developed and the digital asset is subject to extensive restrictions on secondary trading, like TKJ, are more likely to fall outside the scope of federal securities laws.
Continue Reading SEC Provides Second No-Action Letter in the Digital Asset Space

In May 2019, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (the “UKJT”) of the LawTech Delivery Panel published its public consultation paper on the status of cryptoassets and distributed ledger technology, as well as the enforceability of smart contracts, under English private law. While much of the literature around cryptoassets in the legal context has been centred on their regulation, the UKJT’s consultation paper focuses on the legal characterization of these instruments themselves. In this article, we consider how cryptoassets can be defined using the existing vocabulary of English private law and the implications of this characterization.
Continue Reading Are Cryptoassets Property Under English Law?

On April 3, 2019, staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission released (1) a framework providing principles for analyzing whether a digital asset constitutes an investment contract, and thus a security, as defined in SEC v. W.J. Howey Co. and (2) a no-action letter permitting TurnKey Jet, Inc., without satisfying registration requirements under the Securities

On January 22, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”)[1] released its 2019 Risk Monitoring and Examination Priorities Letter (the “Letter”).  The Letter highlights material new priorities for FINRA examinations in the coming year, as well as priorities in areas of ongoing concern.  The topics highlighted in this year’s Letter reflect FINRA’s increasing focus on its members’ interaction with, and adoption of, innovative financial technologies, as well as its implicit acknowledgement of the ability for such innovations to assist in regulatory compliance.  The new priorities highlighted in the Letter include several related to FinTech, including online distribution platforms, use of regulatory technology (or “RegTech”), and supervision of digital asset businesses.  In priority areas of ongoing concern, the Letter confirmed that FINRA will continue to focus on reviewing the adequacy of firms’ cybersecurity programs.  Below we detail FINRA’s discussion of these priorities and analyze them in the context of other recent guidance and enforcement actions.
Continue Reading FINRA 2019 Examination Priorities Letter Includes Focus on FinTech and Cybersecurity

Continuing its efforts to engage with FinTech innovators and market participants in the adoption of new technologies, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) and its LabCFTC[1] released a Primer on Smart Contracts (the “Primer”) on November 27. The Commission focused its Primer on (1) detailing the technical aspects of smart contract technology; (2) examining potential benefits and risks connected to their widespread adoption; and (3) the CFTC’s role in regulating the adoption of the technology within those markets under its jurisdiction.
Continue Reading The CFTC Releases Primer on Smart Contract Use in Financial Markets

On September 26, 2018, a federal court in the District of Massachusetts found that virtual currencies are a commodity under the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. § 1 et seq, (“CEA”). This marks the second time that a court has accepted the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) position and upheld the agency’s authority to regulate unleveraged and unmargined spot transactions in virtual currency under the agency’s anti-fraud and manipulation enforcement authority.  Most notably, however, the reasoning behind its decision potentially expands the scope of the CFTC’s oversight of the market.
Continue Reading Second District Court Determines Virtual Currencies Are Commodities

On Tuesday, September 11, 2018, Judge Raymond J. Dearie of the Eastern District of New York issued a decision holding that Initial Coin Offerings (“ICO”) may qualify as securities offerings and therefore be subject to the criminal federal securities laws.  This ruling came as two U.S. regulators—the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”)—announced separate actions under securities laws against companies engaged in the cryptocurrency marketplace, including the sale of digital tokens.  As the popularity of cryptocurrencies grows and businesses and entrepreneurs increasingly turn to ICOs to raise capital, these developments may serve as guideposts for how cryptocurrencies and ICOs will be viewed by courts and federal regulators in cases to follow.
Continue Reading Federal Court, SEC, and FINRA Scrutinize Cryptocurrencies and ICOs