On Aug. 8, 2022, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed economic sanctions on Tornado Cash, a popular cryptocurrency mixing service that allows customers to obscure the original source of virtual currency transactions by “mixing”
GT attorneys Leith Ben Ammar, Claire Broadbelt, Miles Daly, Matt Hancock, Emma L. Menzies, Thai Nguyen, and Nickie Pickernell co-authored the UK Chapter of the Chambers and Partners Blockchain 2022 Guide, which provides an
The latest negotiations on the EU’s crypto-assets Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) have seen the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary affairs (ECON Committee) refusing to order a ban on crypto-assets using the common, but highly energy-consuming, Proof of
The Washington state Department of Revenue (WDOR) in July 2022 published detailed guidance on the sales tax consequences of non-fungible token (NFT) sales, the first such guidance in the United States, and other state tax agencies may be eyeing
On June 30, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced criminal charges against six defendants in four separate criminal cases involving alleged fraud in the offering of cryptocurrency investment vehicles. The DOJ press release announced charges in four separate
On June 2, 2022, Regulation (EU) 2022/858 on a pilot regime for market infrastructures based on distributed ledger technology (the Regulation) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
The Regulation aims to eliminate regulatory barriers to the
On June 2, 2022, the New York Senate passed Senate Bill S6486D (the Bill), which would amend the state’s environmental conservation law and set forth a two-year moratorium on certain cryptocurrency mining operations in the state of New York. The
On June 8, 2022, the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) issued a new Regulatory Guidance, setting foundational criterial for USD-backed stablecoins used by DFS-regulated entities. This represents the first U.S. state agency to regulate issuers of
On June 7, 2022, California State Assembly Banking and Finance Committee Chair Timothy Grayson introduced legislation, Assembly Bill (AB) 2269, sponsored by the Consumer Federation of California, that will establish the Digital Financial Assets Law. The legislation aims to give
On May 12, 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed bill CS/HB 273 (the Bill), amending Florida’s money services business (MSB) laws (i.e., Chapter 560 of the Florida Statutes) to, among other things, define “virtual currency” and address transactions involving “virtual currency.”