Reports of FTX Group’s demise has been inescapable since news first broke of potential insolvency and misuse of customer funds. This blog post provides some background on the situation as well as some thoughts on what is likely to come next. Please see our blog post here on the enforcement storm that is…

With the collapse of FTX and Alameda so close on the heels of Celsius, one thing is clear – the regulatory and enforcement storm so many anticipated coming to crypto is now here.  Unfortunately, regardless of what the facts surrounding FTX and Alameda ultimately turn out to be, incidents like this serve to reinforce the…

On October 11, 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced enforcement actions against Bittrex, Inc. (Bittrex), a privately-owned digital asset trading platform based in Bellevue, Washington, for apparent violations of anti-money laundering (AML) laws and of multiple sanctions programs. A settlement of…

On October 10, 2022, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) released its new global tax reporting standards for cryptocurrency and other digital assets, the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and Amendments to the Common Reporting Standard.[1] The CARF provides standards that, if adopted by jurisdictions, would require cryptocurrency exchanges, intermediaries, and other service…

On August 30, 2022, further amendments to the UK’s nine thematic and 29 geographic sanctions regulations came into effect, which expand financial sanctions reporting obligations to cryptoasset exchanges and custodian wallet providers.  The amendments, which were introduced under the Sanctions (EU Exit) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2022 and the Sanctions (EU Exit) (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No.2) Regulations…

On August 1, Robinhood Crypto, LLC (RHC) entered a consent order with the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) requiring RHC to pay a $30 million fine for violating (1) New York’s virtual currency regulatory regime known as the BitLicense, (2) a Supervisory Agreement entered with DFS as a condition of its BitLicense,…

On August 8, 2022, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the imposition of sanctions on the decentralized digital asset mixer Tornado Cash. The action marks the first time OFAC has targeted an on-chain decentralized protocol. To date, OFAC has not issued any guidance specific to decentralized finance (DeFi)…

On July 21, 2022, the SEC filed insider trading charges in federal court against a former Coinbase product manager and two others for trading ahead of multiple announcements that certain crypto assets would be made available for trading on the platform.[1] The SEC alleged that the defendants traded ahead of listing announcements for at…

On June 7, 2022, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA), which seeks to create a complete regulatory framework for digital assets. This is the second in a series of blogs on this groundbreaking bipartisan legislation. Click here for a general overview of the bill and…

On June 7, 2022, Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced the Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA). This highly anticipated legislation is the first attempt at developing a comprehensive regulatory framework for cryptocurrency and digital assets.
The RFIA builds off proposals introduced this Congress and includes a number of provisions related…

On March 7, 2022, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the US Department of the Treasury published guidance (Guidance) for US financial institutions warning about: (1) efforts of foreign actors to evade expanding US economic sanctions and trade restrictions related to the Russian Federation and Belarus and (2) increased risk of malicious cyber-attacks and…

On November 1, 2021, the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) issued a joint report that, among other things, calls on Congress to adopt legislation to enable federal oversight of stablecoin issuers, custodial wallet providers that hold stablecoins,…

The House Rules Committee recently released the latest version of HR 5376, the Build Back Better Act. This proposal would amend Internal Revenue Code section 1091 (“loss from wash sales of stock or securities”) to apply to a much broader range of assets, including foreign currency, commodities, and digital assets, in addition to stocks and…