The role of whitepapers in the Crypto Asset Market October 19, 2020 The rapid global rise of crypto assets as a new asset class has seen governments and regulators around the world scramble to identify suitable regulatory regimes. Out of the dust of that rise, we can now see the emergence of nascent regulatory frameworks, from the European Commission’s Digital Finance Strategy, to Gibraltar’s proposed ICO Regulations. [...]
Introducing MiCA: Europe’s proposed cryptoasset laws, explained October 16, 2020 As the European Commission launched its long-awaited Digital Finance Strategy in late September, a senior official announced: “The future of finance is digital”. The Commission sees digital finance as a weapon in its arsenal as it seeks to relaunch and modernise the European economy to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, and the Strategy sets out [...]
This week’s legal roundup October 7, 2020 Charles Kerrigan, Partner at CMS Law writes today’s legal briefing which is a sports roundup up of progress towards institutional acceptance of digital assets. These stories are unrelated except that they show the range of important constituents working on these questions at the same time. Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, gave [...]
FinTech-friendly Singapore: Laws have something to do with it! September 22, 2020 With much fanfare being made of Singapore’s move to position itself as a global crypto and FinTech Hub, we explore in this article what exactly is drawing more and more crypto and FinTech businesses to Singapore’s shores and how laws and the legal industry play such a significant part. According to the Monetary Authority of [...]
The semantics of becoming a cyptocurrency platypus September 17, 2020 If frequency of use is any measure of popularity in etymology, then “sovereignty” has a lot of new best friends in the semantics playground. For many, it is a familiar word in the ongoing matter of the departure of one island nation from a continental economic union where, as is often the case, it means [...]
The Digital Currency Crossroads: CBDCs across borders, and the UK approach September 10, 2020 Growing interest in Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) has widely been viewed as a response by central banks to the emergence of private stablecoins, most notably Facebook’s Libra, announced in June 2019. Regulators and intergovernmental organisations, such as the Financial Action Task Force, have been working to understand the risks and potential of stablecoins, and [...]
The Lawyer’s Role in Innovation August 25, 2020 According to the recently published results of the UK Innovation Survey 2019, innovation activities have been on the decline since a peak in 2012-2014, with only 38% of businesses considered “innovation active” in 2016-2018. Notwithstanding this, the phrase “innovation” is near ubiquitously referenced within the legal industry. Which begs the question, how do lawyers actually [...]
What a Venture Capitalist (VC) really wants August 18, 2020 Covid has defined radical disruptions and, more than ever before, raising private capital is under scrutiny for funding the next unicorn. The sad reality is not every entrepreneur will make it, and it’s not because they don’t have a brilliant idea. In our roles, we get candid insight from VCs on what they are really [...]
The Financial Action Task Force’s latest mission… Global Stablecoins August 11, 2020 In October of 2019, four months after Facebook announced its ambitious Libra project to the world, the G20 assigned a new mission to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF): to investigate and report on the risks of an emerging breed of cryptoasset – the “global stablecoin”. This article will discuss the headline findings of the [...]
The Financial Promotion of Cryptoassets – Keeping the Virtual Cat Out of the Regulatory Bag? July 28, 2020 It is a sign of the times that a consultation by the UK’s financial regulators that does not mention COVID-19 is a rarity. However, apart from a single passing nod to the pandemic, HM Treasury launched two consultations last week on proposals to alter how financial promotions are regulated in the UK. Whilst the Cryptoassets [...]
