Digital currency is an exciting, dynamic and growing technology changing the financial and legal landscapes. To keep pace, corporate counsel must stay abreast of new rules, new regulations, and new applications of blockchain technology. Recognizing this need, Digital Currency + Blockchain Perspectives chronicles industry news, including regulatory developments and other issues affecting our clients and the digital currency industry.

SEC Sues Ripple and Executives in Connection With Ongoing Sales of XRP

The SEC, in one of the Commission’s final acts under the leadership of Chair Jay Clayton, approved enforcement action aimed at Ripple Labs, Inc. (“Ripple”) and two of its executives, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen. The SEC filed its complaint on December 22, 2020 in the Southern District of New…

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SEC to Wyoming (Division of Banking): Interpreting Federal Securities Laws and Rules is our Domain

In early November 2020, the staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Division of Investment Management (“IM Division”), in consultation with the SEC’s “FinHub” staff, issued a statement in response to a No-Action Letter from the Wyoming Division of Banking purporting to provide interpretive guidance on both Wyoming…

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BitMEX Founder’s Charges Highlight Risks for DeFi

***This article was originally published in CoinDesk and can be found here – https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/11/24/bitmex-founders-charges-highlight-risks-for-defi  In October, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed enforcement actions against the entities and individuals that own and operate the Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange (BitMEX), a trading platform for cryptocurrency…

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Villanova University is Sending Blockchain into Space

Please note, this is a summary to the article originally published in Coindesk. Villanova’s engineering school is sending a private Ethereum blockchain into space on a Firefly Aerospace rocket (slated to launch November 20th) to test whether distributed ledger technology (DLT) can help satellites exchange data. The rocket will carry…

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So You Want to be a Bank?

Goodwin’s recent webinar explored why a fintech company might consider forming or acquiring a depository institution, detailed how depository institutions and their holding companies are regulated, and addressed considerations relevant for fintechs and their investors when considering potential depository institution charters. To watch the panel we held by our Banking…

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