On February 15, 2022, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs (“Senate Banking Committee”) hosted a virtual hearing entitled, “Examining the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets Report on Stablecoins.” The hearing focused on the Report on Stablecoins (crypto-assets pegged to real assets, usually the U.S. dollar), that was issued by the President’s Working Group on Financial…

In response to ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine, U.S. authorities have imposed several tranches of new sanctions against Russia, particularly against Russia’s financial industry, including its major banks and the Central Bank of Russia. On February 26, President Biden and leaders of other European countries announced their intention to remove certain Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system,…

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…