On November 28, 2018, the United States District Court for the Southern District of California denied the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) request for a preliminary injunction against Defendants Blockvest, LLC (Blockvest) and Blockvest’s founder and chairman Reginald Buddy
FinTech Update
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SEC settlement of two ICOs based on sales of unregistered securities: No fraud claims asserted
On Friday, November 16, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it settled two cases against digital token issuers. The settlements, one with CarrierEQ Inc. (AirFox) and the other with Paragon Coin Inc. (Paragon), are the first…
SEC in First Enforcement Action Against Token Exchange
On November 8, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) settled its first case against an unregistered cryptocurrency exchange. Zachary Coburn, founder of EtherDelta, agreed to pay $313,000 in disgorgement and interest, along with a civil fine of…
September report details UK digital currency regulations
Last month (September 2018), the House of Commons Treasury Committee issued a report on its inquiry into the regulation of crypto-assets. The inquiry examined, amongst other subjects, the role of digital currencies in the UK; the impact of distributed ledger…
German criminal court defies regulatory practice of the financial regulator (BaFin) ruling that Bitcoins are not financial instruments
Unlike in most other European jurisdictions the regulatory practice in Germany has been to treat Bitcoins as units of account and as such financial instruments pursuant to Section 1 German Banking Act (Kreditwesengesetz, “KWG”). The practical consequence of this is…
Federal Regulation of Virtual Currency and Digital Tokens: Preemption, Jurisdiction, and Clarity. But will States Push Back?
In September of this year, certain congressmen expressed their intention to preempt state regulation of virtual currency regulation. Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) expressed a need for “partial federal preemption” of state laws and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) plans to introduce…
Virtual Currencies and Digital Assets: NFA Disclosure Requirements Further Evidence of Increasing Attention from Self-Regulatory Organizations
In March of this year, the NFA issued a notice reminded futures commission merchants (“FCM”), introducing brokers (“IB”), commodity pool operators (“CPO”) and commodity trading advisors (“CTA”) that trade in, solicit or accept orders in virtual currency products (spot and…
Regulation A+: A Path to Market for Crypto Companies?
Most companies considering an Initial Coin Offering to U.S. purchasers have resigned themselves to the fact that their proposed token or coin offering is likely to be considered an offering of securities by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and…
Reed Smith partner applies AI techniques to develop new type of contract – a Data Contract
See a demonstration of a simplified “AI and the Law: Data Contract”: and the Companion Software Application. This demo shows how we can access contract information stored as fields of data on the Microsoft Azure cloud. (I use a credit…
Ohio Enacts Blockchain Legislation
Governor John Kasich signed a bill into law on Friday, August 3, 2018, adding Ohio to the list of U.S. states enacting blockchain legislation. Introduced last October and passed by the House at the end of June, SB 220 legally…