Bitcoin innovators need legal safe harbors
These powerful regulatory tools were essential to the early Internet and now we need them again.
We got lucky with the Internet. The net we’ve come to know, love, and rely upon owes much of its existence to two laws passed by Congress in the late...
Things are looking up for Bitcoin’s biggest regulatory hurdle
How the OCC and states like Illinois are taking strategic, sensible approaches to promising new financial technologies.
This week we filed two regulatory comments in proceedings (with the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation) that...
The state has taken a reasonable and transparent approach to regulation that does not attempt to stretch statutory interpretation or apply ill-fitting older rules to new technologies.
A direct download of these comments is available here.
The price of bitcoin still doesn’t matter right now.
The new year began with a bang as the price of a single bitcoin rocketed up past $1,100 and quickly fell back to around $900, where it seems to be...
“Dear Mr. Trump: To ‘Cyber’ Better, Try the Blockchain.”
As president-elect Trump prepares to take office he must develop comprehensive plans to address growing cybesecurity concerns. In a recent op-ed for WIRED, Coin Center director of research Peter Van Valkenburgh suggests...
“Blockchain technology” is a buzzword with little meaning. Here’s what matters.
A thorough examination of the different types of blockchains, their capabilities, and why open blockchains in particular must be allowed room to thrive.
You may have heard that “blockchain technology” is the solution to any number of social, economic, organizational or cybersecurity problems. It is not. A blockchain is merely a data structure...
Open Matters: Why Permissionless Blockchains are Essential to the Future of the Internet
We demystify the actual technologies behind “blockchain technology” and explain these several technologies in a way that even non-technical readers will understand.
This report offers a non-technical but thorough explanation of “blockchain technology” with a focus on the key variables within consensus mechanism design that differentiate so-called permissioned or closed and permissionless...
A Securities Law Framework for Blockchain Tokens
An open source and free to use framework prepared in collaboration with Coinbase, Union Square Ventures and Consensys.
This framework was originally published December 2016. It is well out of date now. Do not rely on it. As the development of blockchain tokens (also known as App Coins)...
This academic study of digital currency businesses needs your help.
The University of Cambridge Judge Business School’s Centre for Alternative Finance is launching the first Global Blockchain Benchmarking Study. We’ve partnered with the centre to help create what will be...
Comments to the Securities and Exchange Commission on the SolidX Bitcoin Trust
An insurance-backed Bitcoin ETF will be a component of responsible risk management for investors that will further the evolution of Bitcoin.
A direct download of this letter is available here.