Blockchain Legal Resource

Last week, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (“CFTC”) Division of Market Oversight and Division of Clearing and Risk issued a joint staff advisory providing guidance to exchanges and clearinghouses for listing virtual currency derivatives products.

The advisory relies on established rules and regulations as it clarifies the CFTC’s priorities and expectations in its review of new virtual currency derivatives products.  In the press release announcing the advisory, the CFTC stated its intent to exercise “appropriate oversight, while encouraging innovation and growth in these products.”

North American Securities Administrators Association (“NASAA”) members from more than 40 jurisdictions across the United States and Canada are working together in “Operation Cryptosweep,” a coordinated series of enforcement actions to crack down on fraudulent initial coin offerings (“ICOs”), cryptocurrency-related investment products and the individuals behind them.  NASAA organized a task force of its members in April 2018 to begin these coordinated investigations, which identified hundreds of ICOs in the final stages of pre-launch preparation and other cryptocurrency-related investment products.

Blockchain’s impact is often misunderstood as narrowly affecting the financial sector. We discuss with Law360 why “retail and consumer products companies can no longer afford to ignore blockchain as a passing trend.”

2018 continues to be a busy year for initial coin offerings, notwithstanding recent announcements from capital markets regulators in the US.  In this alert, we chronicled developments at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, state securities regulators and others.