On February 9, 2022, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry (“Senate Agriculture Committee”) hosted a virtual hearing entitled, “Examining Digital Assets: Risks, Regulation, and Innovation.”  The hearing focused on potentially expanding the scope of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”)’s regulatory authority to cover digital asset commodities.   The hearing is indicative of a broader interest of the Senate…

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have exploded in popularity and caught the public’s attention in the last year or two. But what is the hype all about, and what risks do participants in the market face? In this program, our blockchain experts explored the development and evolution of NFTs and NFT marketplaces, as well as considered legal and non-legal risks that arise…

On February 15, 2022, House Financial Services Committee member Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) released a discussion draft of a bill (the “bill”) that would create bank-like regulation for stablecoin issuers. (We covered an earlier draft of this bill in our recent post.) Rep. Gottheimer said the bill, titled the Stablecoin Innovation and Protection Act of 2022, is designed to encourage…

On Tuesday, February 8, in two separate rulings, a California federal district court upheld the “valid when made” rules promulgated by the Office of Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”), against challenges brought by the Attorneys General for several states.[1] We previously discussed the significance of the OCC’s then-proposed rule to provide certainty to…

Originally Published: February 17, 2022 Update: February 22, 2022 Last week, in a speech at the U.S Monetary Policy Forum in New York, FRB Governor Lael Brainard continued to tout the potential of a CBDC in the U.S. digital payment infrastructure, while also highlighting potential risks. Though the topics she discussed reiterated key issues, Governor Brainard highlighted a number of topics…