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.

OFAC Announces Settlement with PayPal for Apparent Sanctions Violations

On March 25, 2015, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC) announced a settlement with electronic funds transfer giant PayPal, Inc. At issue were almost 500 transactions totaling approximately $44,000 in violation of various U.S. sanctions programs, including for Iran, Cuba, Sudan, proliferation of weapons of…

Read More

The “Blockchains” of Bitcoin 2.0

Bitcoin is built on a distributed consensus technology – the blockchain – which allows transactions to be verified and securely stored without a centralized authority authenticating the transactions.  In its current form, the blockchain serves as a ledger for digital currency.  However, developers with a sophisticated understanding of cryptography seek…

Read More

California's Proposed Virtual Currency License

In late February 2015, a California Assembly member introduced a bill (AB 1326) proposing a licensing framework under which virtual currency companies would be required to operate. What Is It? If passed in its current form, the bill would require that certain virtual currency companies doing business in California obtain…

Read More

States May Accept Bitcoin for Tax Payments

Tired of paying state taxes in dollars? If bills recently introduced in New Hampshire and Utah pass, those states’ taxes could eventually be paid in bitcoin. The New Hampshire House of Representative’s Ways and Means committee is considering a bill that would allow New Hampshire to accept bitcoin payments beginning…

Read More