On December 16, FinCEN issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) entitled “Beneficial Ownership Information Access and Safeguards, and Use of FinCEN Identifiers for Entities.” The NPRM is intended to implement the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) and, in particular, to govern which entities may access corporate beneficial ownership information (BOI) that certain entities will soon…

With the collapse of FTX and Alameda so close on the heels of Celsius, one thing is clear – the regulatory and enforcement storm so many anticipated coming to crypto is now here.  Unfortunately, regardless of what the facts surrounding FTX and Alameda ultimately turn out to be, incidents like this serve to reinforce the…

On October 11, 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced enforcement actions against Bittrex, Inc. (Bittrex), a privately-owned digital asset trading platform based in Bellevue, Washington, for apparent violations of anti-money laundering (AML) laws and of multiple sanctions programs. A settlement of over $24 million was announced by OFAC and a $29 million fine was announced by FinCEN. FinCEN will credit payment of the OFAC settlement amount toward Bittrex’s potential liability with FinCEN, meaning Bittrex will pay just over $29 million in total. Joint enforcement action between OFAC and FinCEN is uncommon—the settlements mark the first instance of parallel enforcement actions by OFAC and FinCEN in the digital asset sector.

The parallel settlements provide insight into certain sanctions and AML risks in the digital asset sector and illustrate how OFAC and FinCEN rules intersect and overlap in part: for example, that OFAC violations can trigger suspicious activity report filing obligations.

What’s the SEC’s reach on emerging blockchain technologies and what does that mean for crypto in the United States? In the newest SpeakBold Fireside Chat, Stronghold’s Sarah Lane sits down with Digital Currency & Blockchain Technology partner Karen Ubell to discuss.
The post Crypto Lawyer Karen Ubell on Crypto Regulation, the SEC, and…

On October 10, 2022, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) released its new global tax reporting standards for cryptocurrency and other digital assets, the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and Amendments to the Common Reporting Standard.[1] The CARF provides standards that, if adopted by jurisdictions, would require cryptocurrency exchanges, intermediaries, and other service providers to report to tax authorities required tax information related to certain crypto-asset transactions.

In response to the rapid use and adoption of cryptocurrency, the G-20 mandated the OECD develop a framework for the exchange of tax information for crypto-assets. According to the OECD, crypto-assets are often transferred without the use of traditional financial intermediaries and the CARF addresses coverage gaps in the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) to develop an international reporting framework to ensure standardized tax reporting for crypto-asset transactions.

The CARF includes model rules and commentary for countries to implement domestic laws to collect information related to crypto-asset transactions and is focused on four key areas: (1) the scope of crypto-assets to be covered, (2) the entities and individuals subject to reporting, (3) the transactions subject to reporting, and (4) due diligence procedures.