On April 3, 2019, the SEC’s staff broke deafening silence that had been looming over the digital asset / ICO space. …

Blockchain mania is in full effect. Bitcoin introduced the world to the blockchain: a new technology for creating decentralized, disintermediated trust. For the first time, it was possible for users to have confidence in a public ledger that was maintained without the need for any parties to be trusted to…

Bitcoin is not a currency, the IRS has declared (and others have agreed). This decision impacts both digital currency traders and consumers using Bitcoin to purchase goods and services. After explaining how the IRS’s categorization of Bitcoin negatively affects market efficiency and the chances of Bitcoin’s mass adoption, I will…

The IRS treats Bitcoin as property, and this has worrisome effects on Bitcoin’s usefulness as a currency. Whenever you use Bitcoin to buy a pizza, your transaction is taxable; you must determine whether the Bitcoin you gave the pizzeria for your pie has gone up or down in value since…

Not all digital currencies are alike. In fact, some are so feature rich that calling them “currencies” misses the point. Ethereum, for example, can execute distributed applications and can spawn a wide variety of assets or tokens that stand for ownership in everything from companies to cars. …

As attention and money focus on Bitcoin and other digital currencies, would-be regulators are among the crowd of onlookers. Early signals reveal divergent approaches: facilitation (a la the New York State Department of Financial Services’ Bitlicense) and restriction (a la Senate Bill 1241). …