Protostarr, a block-chain based startup, has shut down its decentralized application and refunded its initial coin offering (ICO) participants following a request for information from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to the company, on August 24, the SEC contacted Protostarr and asked the company to “volunteer a…
Goodwin partner and chair of the firm’s digital currency + blockchain technology practice, Grant Fondo, sat down with John Furrier at theCUBE last week to discuss the current landscape for Blockchain and Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). theCUBE is a leading, live-interview show based in Palo Alto, CA, that covers developments…
Goodwin has recently joined the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) Legal Industry Working Group alongside 13 other leading law firms and academic institutions, bringing together top global law firms and leading legal minds to explore building enterprise-grade applications on Ethereum. The rapid growth of the EEA Legal Industry Working Group is…
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced on Tuesday, July 25, 2017, that Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) and other market participants offering digital assets by “virtual” organizations may be subject to the requirements of federal securities laws. The SEC made clear that simply because there is new technology involved, the SEC still…
A recent Delaware bill is poised to allow private Delaware corporations “use networks of electronic databases (examples of which are described currently as “distributed ledgers” or a “blockchain”) for the creation and maintenance of corporate records, including the corporation’s stock ledger.” The bill is a significant step towards the mainstream…
With the near unanimous passing of a bill that will explicitly recognize the right to trade stocks using a blockchain, Delaware is making a strong case for it being the blockchain-friendliest state. The Delaware Senate Bill 69, which won a majority vote in the Senate with 20 to 0 in…
While the federal government has taken a variety of different positions in regulating distributed ledger technology, there are several important trends that are emerging in states’ regulation of such technology: 1) States are increasingly scrutinizing digital currencies. States are moving forward with regulating digital currencies, especially with respect to…
On March 10, 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) rejected the highly anticipated Winklevoss twins’ COIN bitcoin exchange traded fund (“ETF”), causing the digital currency to plummet 18% in value, to $978.76, “the lowest intraday price in a month.” Then, on March 28, 2017, the SEC rejected a second…
Goodwin will host the Silicon Valley Ethereum Meetup’s monthly gathering on Sunday, May 7, 2017 at our office in Menlo Park, CA. Panelists Daniel Buchner, Head of Decentralized Identity at Microsoft, Andy Atkin, a voice in experimental psychology and healthcare IT, and Grant Fondo, Partner and Chair of Goodwin’s Digital…
Walmart is collaborating with IBM and Tsinghua University to trace an array of food products moving through its vast global supply chain with an emerging technology known as blockchain — a secure system of recording data that could have a transformative effect on the world’s economy. Digital Currency + Blockchain…