Barbara A. Jones, co-chair of global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP’s Blockchain Group, has been selected as a Law360 2020 Fintech MVP. Law360 reports that its MVP of the Year awards honor attorneys for their successes in high-stakes litigation, significant deals, or complex global matters. In all, Law360 selected 189 MVPs, across 38 categories, from more than 900 submissions. Read the full press release.…

On Sept. 25, 2020, the SEC issued a No-Action Letter to FINRA, in response to a previously issued Joint Statement by the SEC and FINRA. This No-Action Letter detailed how broker-dealers could operate alternative trading systems that trade digital assets without garnering enforcement action from the SEC for not meeting the custody requirements required under Rule 15c3-3. Read the full GT Alert, “SEC Issues No-Action Letter Facilitating the Secondary Trading of Digital Assets.”…

In March 2020, a Southern District of New York court issued a significant decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Telegram Group Inc. et al., strengthening the U.S. government’s efforts in cryptocurrency enforcement – an area that is largely unsettled. As we wrote in our article discussing that decision, Judge P. Kevin Castel’s opinion is potentially groundbreaking for the token industry – and the SEC’s enforcement efforts in this space – because the court focused on “economic…

On Sept. 21, 2020, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the OCC) issued guidance pertaining to whether national banks could hold stablecoin reserves. That same day, the Securities and Exchange Commission Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology Staff (the SEC) issued a statement in response to that guidance, advising whether such digital asset, or stablecoin, constituted a security for purposes of the federal securities laws. Read the full GT Alert, “The …

Gibraltar-based INX Ltd. (the Company) launched its U.S. initial public offering of INX security tokens (INX Tokens) on August 20, 2020, over two years after the July 2018 confidential filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission of its initial draft registration statement on Form F-1. The INX registration marks the first registered offering of security tokens declared effective by the Commission. Prior to INX, at least two other issuers successfully qualified security token offerings with…

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce on Feb. 6, 2020, delivered a thought-provoking speech entitled Running on Empty: A Proposal to Fill the Gap Between Regulation and Decentralization, accompanied by a preliminary three-year safe harbor for network development projects to issue tokens. The proposed Securities Act Rule 195, authored solo by Commissioner Peirce, one of five SEC Commissioners, outlined a framework under which developmental tokens would be afforded a registration exemption for up to three years if…