As tax season heads into full swing, cryptocurrency traders may be in for a surprise when they sit down to complete their 2020 taxes. This year, for the first time, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is including a question about cryptocurrency transactions on the first page of Individual Income Tax Returns, Form 1040. The question asks taxpayers if at any time during 2020 they received, sold, sent, exchanged, or otherwise acquired any financial interest…

Mastercard has announced that it will begin supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on its payment network this year. Mastercard made the announcement in February, touting that the change would create “more possibilities for shoppers and merchants,” enabling them to move digital value – traditional or crypto – in a new form of payment. Unlike Mastercard’s previous endeavors in the blockchain space, such as its partnerships with Wirex and BitPay to offer cryptocurrency debit cards, this change…

On March 11, 2021, a piece of digital art sold for $69,000,000.00 (yes, sixty-nine million United States dollars) at Christie’s Auction House (online, of course). That happened roughly five months after its original sale, meaning that the piece created by the artist known as Beeple sold for over 100,000% of its original price ($66,666.66), pushing Beeple to become one of “the top three most valuable living artists” according to Christie’s. Other than the price, what makes the…

On March 15, 2021, Ed Wilson was quoted in PYMNTS on the creation of sovereign digital currencies. According to the article, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last month that central banks should explore creating and issuing sovereign digital currencies. The hypothesis is that such currencies—digital dollars among them—could create “faster, safer and cheaper payments,” she said at a virtual conference. Yellen noted that among the many things to consider is how regulators would “manage…

On Thursday, March 11, a piece of digital art – a JPG file – sold for $69 million. Why would a purely digital work of art ever sell for that much? Scarcity and proof of ownership. That’s right, the underpinning of popular cryptocurrencies – blockchain – is being used to create NFTs (nonfungible tokens) to mint unique pieces of art and other digital collectibles. The piece, titled “Everydays – The First 5000 Days” was created…

Venable’s elite Trademark Prosecution and Counseling Group recently announced the launch of its Wellbrand service, an innovative naming solution that leverages the firm’s trademark-law intelligence to accelerate the process of finding effective brand names. Currently available only to established clients of the Trademark practice, the Wellbrand service bridges the gap between marketing needs and legal know-how, drawing on a deep well of experience to identify names that are more likely to avoid refusal by the…

Technology facilitates legal and illicit transactions alike. Advances in payments technologies and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Monero, and Zcash allow criminal enterprises to dissect, route, and reaggregate small transactions to evade detection by regulatory and enforcement agencies. This is particularly true with international transactions where, for example, the exchange from cryptocurrency to fiat currency takes place outside U.S. financial supervision. To address these challenges, the Federal Reserve Board and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN…