MVA White Collar Defense, Investigations, and Regulatory Advice Blog

The Federal Reserve Board (“FRB”) rarely issues denials for applicants to become members of the Federal Reserve System. Senator Elizabeth Warren has even criticized the FRB for their number of approvals – although in the context of bank mergers. Last Friday Custodia Bank (state chartered in Wyoming) received such a denial. Custodia Bank was formed to be “a compliant bridge between digital assets and the U.S. dollar payments system” and a digital asset custodian.

One of the difficulties digital asset companies, like Custodia Bank, have faced is being able to access the ...

In December 2021, the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (or the “CFPB”) issued a notice and request for comment (the “Notice”) on its intention to make a preemption determination regarding the Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”) and the State of New York’s Commercial Financing Law, which imposes disclosure requirements on certain commercial lending transactions (the “New York CFL”). The preemption determination had been requested by the Small Business Finance Association (the “SBFA”), a non-profit advocacy organization for its members who provide ...

For those tracking developments impacting the crypto-asset space, the summer has been far from slow and leisurely. Multiple industry alerts flow daily with news of new legislative proposals, enforcement actions, and other events or issues impacting the industry. The news is inevitably accompanied by calls for greater legal certainty regarding crypto-asset characterization and clarity around the regulatory framework governing the industry. While news flows quickly, the pace of substantive developments, however, has been frustratingly slow for many. Unmoved by demands for ...

In a prior post, we discussed the recent proposed rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) regarding certain non-public information reported to the SEC and the CFTC in the Form PF. Most of the rule is discussing information and requirements that are not related to or focused on digital assets. However, in one part, there is a proposal to request information from private funds about their “digital assets”.

The definition from the SEC and CFTC for “digital assets” is broad and all encompassing. As a ...

A Bloomberg article last week suggests potentially more bad news is on the way for Coinbase Global Inc. (“Coinbase”). Coinbase is reportedly facing an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) into whether it let customers trade digital assets that the SEC believes should have been registered as securities. Rumors of investigations by the SEC do not necessarily suggest problems for the company at the center of those rumors, but the timing of a recent SEC complaint (SEC v. Wahi) may explain why this report had such a negative effect on Coinbase’s ...