November 18, 2018
As we near the end of 2018, “the year of regulation”, it is fitting that the SEC has made moves in the past couple of weeks providing more action and clarity around its digital assets enforcement strategy. On November 8th, Read more…
October 16, 2018
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the proliferation of stablecoins, crytpocurrencies using different mechanisms to maintain a stable value versus a specific price (most often US$). The goal is to reduce volatility when utilizing decentralized applications. Many exchanges have Read more…
August 3, 2018
The big news this morning is that Intercontinental Exchange, parent of the New York Stock Exchange, announced the formation of a new company, Bakkt, a global platform to allow consumers and institutions to buy, hold and store digital assets. Its Read more…
July 22, 2018
Last week in NYC I shared a panel with Valerie Szczepanik, SEC’s “crypto czar”. We had a wide-ranging discussion on self-regulation, utility tokens, the SEC’s role in protecting investors, and accredited investor definitions. While the conversation was under Chatham House Rules Read more…
July 6, 2018
As the United States celebrated its Independence Day on July 4th, several jurisdictions around the world, including South Korea, Bermuda and Malta, passed legislation to support crypto assets and virtual currencies. Of these, South Korea’s appears the most detailed by Read more…
June 13, 2018
I just wrapped up 2 days of speaking at MoneyConf in Dublin, an annual conference dedicated to all things fintech. In contrast to previous years, at least 50% of the programming involved blockchain technology. I shared the stage with two Read more…
April 3, 2018
The first quarter was not a pretty one for cryptocurrency prices — from January 1-March 31, Bitcoin lost over 50% of its value, with a number of smaller altcoins down over 60%. Regulatory action, hacks and scams weighed heavily, with Read more…
March 19, 2018
I took a hiatus from the newsletter last week, while meeting with entrepreneurs and speaking at SXSW in Austin. Similar to what I saw (at the very different gathering) at Davos in January, much of the conference chatter revolved around Read more…
March 5, 2018
In the past week, more news started to emerge about the SEC subpoenas that I alluded to in last week’s newsletter. While it remains to be seen what the SEC plans to do with the information, it is clear that Read more…
February 12, 2018
Last Tuesday February the Senate Banking Committee held a hearing with SEC Chairman Jay Clayton and CFTC Chairman Christopher Giancarlo to discuss potential cryptocurrency regulation. As the chart below displays, the cryptocurrency market was in the middle of its second Read more…