On October 9, 2019, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) issued guidance relating to cryptocurrencies in the effort to educate taxpayers about their tax obligations with respect to transactions involving digital assets.1
Read MoreOn July 25, 2019, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued a “no-action” letter to Pocketful of Quarters, Inc. (“PoQ”) for its Ethereum ERC-20 token “Quarters.”[1] The no-action letter—the second letter issued by the SEC this year[2]—assures PoQ that the SEC will not seek any enforcement action.
Read MoreOn July 18, 2019, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) issued Regulatory Notice 19-24[1], which extended the deadline of FINRA’s previously issued notice that asked members to keep their Regulatory Coordinator informed if the firm, or its associates or affiliates, engaged, or intended to engage, in activities related to digital assets.
Read MoreOn July 8, 2019, the staffs of the Division of Trading and Markets, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Office of General Counsel, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) released a joint statement (the “Joint Statement”) providing guidance with respect to applicable regulations relating to broker-dealer custody of digital asset securities.
Read MoreOn April 18, 2019, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) announced1 a civil monetary penalty against an individual for operating a peer-to-peer virtual currency exchanger. FinCEN assessed a $35,350 civil monetary penalty against Eric Powers of Kern County, California for willfully violating registration and reporting requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”).
Read MoreOn April 10, 2019, U.S. Representatives Warren Davidson (R-OH) and Darren Soto (D-FL) reintroduced the Token Taxonomy Act1 (“TTA”) in the effort to amend the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to exclude “digital tokens” from the definition of a security and provide tax certainty on such assets.
Read MoreOn April 3, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (the “SEC”) Division of Corporation Finance (“Division”) issued a Statement with a “Framework for ‘Investment Contract’ Analysis of Digital Assets” (the “Framework”) for the application of U.S. federal securities laws to blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.
Read MoreYesterday at the Consensus: Invest Conference in New York City, Jay Clayton, Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “Commission”), strongly reaffirmed the guidance put forth by his agency in the last several weeks on cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and “digital asset securities”.
Read MoreOn November 16, 2018, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, Division of Investment Management, and Division of Trading and Markets (the “Divisions”) issued a statement on “Digital Asset Securities Issuance and Trading.” The statement highlights several recent SEC enforcement actions involving the intersection of the U.S. securities laws and new technologies.
Read MoreOn June 14, 2018, the Securities and Exchanges Commission (“SEC”) marked a paradigm shift in the way that cryptocurrencies, protocol tokens, and other block-chain based digital assets (“Crypto Assets”) are being described or categorized in the securities regulatory environment.
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