Earlier this month, Telegram Inc. announced that it was abandoning its development of the Telegram Open Network (TON).  The move comes after the SEC won a preliminary injunction against Telegram in the Southern District of New York in March that blocked Telegram from launching TON and its native cryptocurrency, the Gram.  The Court determined that…

At the end of 2018 the UK Treasury Committee announced that it would launch an inquiry into information technology (IT) failures in the financial services sector. The Treasury Committee has stated that it will appoint a specialist advisor to help provide analysis and aid the inquiry.

The past 18 months have seen numerous IT failures…

Governor John Kasich signed a bill into law on Friday, August 3, 2018, adding Ohio to the list of U.S. states enacting blockchain legislation.  Introduced last October and passed by the House at the end of June, SB 220 legally recognizes records or contracts and signatures secured through blockchain technology.  Specifically, the bill amends Section…

The City of Berkeley, California will be the first U.S. city to explore blockchain-based financing to tackle social issues such as affordable housing.  Mayor Jesse Arreguin and Council member Ben Bartlett are collaborating with the UC Berkeley Blockchain Lab and San Francisco-based financial startup Neighborly for the Berkeley Blockchain Initiative (“BBI”) to develop a tokenized…

On February 9, 2018, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (“SFC”) released a statement which, among other things, informs the marketplace that the SFC sent letters to seven Hong Kong cryptocurrency exchanges warning against listing instruments that qualify as “securities” under the Securities and Futures Ordinance (“SFO”) without a required license.[1]  Additionally,…

Nine years after Satoshi Nakamoto circulated his whitepaper and introduced the world to bitcoin, regulated bitcoin derivatives are about to be introduced in the United States. CME Group recently announced that it will begin to offer bitcoin futures based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate later this year[1] and the Chicago Board Options…

The increased use of Yelp reviews, Facebook “likes” and other social media interactions to determine a borrower’s creditworthiness has caught the attention of regulators in US Department of Treasury, amid concerns that the data is too subjective and could result in discriminatory lending patterns if not used properly.

On October 29, Antonio Wiess, an advisor…