Mitzi Chang, a partner and co-chair of the Fintech and Digital Currency & Blockchain Technology practices, was recently featured as a guest on Hsu Untied, a unique podcast with Richard Hsu. Hsu Untied is a 2-time award-winning podcast started by Richard Hsu for entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, best-selling authors, lawyers, athletes, TED speakers, and…
In a first of its kind enforcement action, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) is attempting to hold participating members of a decentralized autonomous organization (“DAO”) liable for alleged violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”) and CFTC regulations. The CFTC argued (1) that the DAO is an unincorporated association;…
On July 21, 2022, the SEC charged three individuals with insider trading of digital assets via a scheme to trade ahead of multiple announcements regarding crypto assets being made available on a United States-based digital asset exchange at which one individual was a former product manager. In the complaint, the SEC identifies…
The blockchain and digital asset landscape continued to evolve in 2020. DeFi grew exponentially, venture funds are highly active, state and international jurisdictions are vying for crypto business, a crypto lawyer is head of the OCC, and Bitcoin has almost become mainstream. With the SEC, CFTC, FinCEN, DOJ, and the…
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…
In a recent decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Telegram Group Inc. and TON Issuer Inc., the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted a motion for a preliminary injunction by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), thereby preventing the distribution to purchasers of…
2019 was a year of significant regulatory and legal developments in digital currency + blockchain. The SEC issued its most comprehensive guidance to date with its Framework for “Investment Contract” Analysis of Digital Assets, followed that up with three “no action” letters for projects that in its view complied with…
Speaking at the International Blockchain Congress in Chicago on February 6, 2020, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce proposed a safe harbor from U.S. securities laws so that developers of blockchain protocols could offer and sell tokens for the purpose of developing functioning token networks and creating liquidity for users. Commissioner Peirce’s…
YouNow, Inc. (File No. 024-11018) On July 11, 2019, one day after the qualification of Blockstack’s offering, the SEC qualified the second offering of digital tokens under Regulation A+. YouNow, Inc. sought to offer an aggregate of 178,000,000 “Props Tokens” at a deemed price of $0.1369 per token in (1)…
On July 10, 2019, the SEC qualified the first-ever offering of digital tokens under Regulation A+. Blockstack PBC sought to offer up to 180,333,333 “Stacks Tokens” in the following ways: (1) 78,333,333 Stacks Tokens at a discounted price of US $0.12 per token (up to a maximum of US $3,000 per holder)…