Tag Archives: FinTech

The Legal Risks of Automated Transaction Copying in Crypto Markets 

By | June 6, 2023
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Markets built on public, permissionless blockchains like Ethereum are radically transparent. While pending transactions in traditional finance are considered private information, viewable only by brokers or corporate insiders, transactions submitted to Ethereum’s public mempool—where they wait to be included on the blockchain—are publicly known. This creates profit opportunities and trading strategies that are rarely, if… Read More »

Interdependencies in Crypto Ecosystems: Drivers, Implications and Policy Responses 

By | May 24, 2023
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Crypto assets and crypto-related financial activities are generating considerable discourse among global regulators and financial supervisors. As key actors in the emerging alternative finance ecosystems, crypto and its market actors have drawn increasing attention to their potential policy implications, particularly on financial integrity, consumer protection and financial stability. This is primarily because crypto ecosystems remain… Read More »

DeFi’s Decentralization Myth

By | April 17, 2023
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Decentralized Finance (“DeFi”) has grown in popularity due to its promise that it will, as its name suggests, disintermediate traditional finance structures. Total Value Locked, which represents all deposits in various DeFi platforms, grew from $1 billion in June 2020 to a peak of almost $200 billion in November 2021. As of April 2023, almost… Read More »

Towards A Capital Efficient Digital Currency  

By | April 12, 2023
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In this blog post, we analyse tokenized deposits in terms of financial motivation, regulation, technological implementation, and interaction with retail and wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), with particular attention to the European perspective. We conclude that the tokenization of deposits is a crucial enabler for the success of future CBDCs and needs to enter… Read More »

Security Researchers Battle Against The DMCA

By | April 5, 2023
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In our digital age, cybersecurity plays a crucial role in resolving consumer concerns regarding data breaches. Nevertheless, United States copyright laws prohibit the effective use of cybersecurity tools that disrupt malicious hackers from accessing personal (and sensitive) information. One law that is especially detrimental to defending against malicious attackers is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act… Read More »

When Machines Call the Shots: Legal Considerations for the AI-Powered Board of Directors 

By | April 3, 2023
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Back in 2014, the Hong Kong-based venture capital group Deep Knowledge Ventures announced that it had successfully appointed an algorithm named “VITAL” to its board of directors. This system of artificial intelligence (AI) was purportedly given the right to vote on whether the firm needed to invest in a specific company or not, similar to… Read More »

DeFi Common Sense: The Risks of Crypto-backed Lending   

By | March 30, 2023
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Decentralized finance (‘DeFi’) through smart contract technology has been touted as a major use case for blockchain technology ever since the launch of the Ethereum blockchain. One area within DeFi that received particular interest from an early stage is secured lending. Yet, in both Commonwealth and UCC jurisdictions, doubts exist over how such assets function… Read More »

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) as an Investment Class 

By | February 27, 2023
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Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been in the spotlight for several years now following a trading frenzy and spectacular returns. An NFT is a digital record of ownership, created and stored on a blockchain, and thus tamper-proof and auditable. Blockchains are decentralized ledgers of transactions that are designed to run perpetually, hence providing the basis for… Read More »

Using ETFs To Conceal Insider Trading 

By | February 24, 2023
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Insiders are continually implementing new illegal trading strategies to avoid detection by regulators. Conventional illegal insider trading takes place in stocks. However, these strategies are evolving and also include trading using family member accounts or other securities such as options.   In 2021, in the first case of its kind, the SEC charged an employee of… Read More »

Lee Reiners’ Oral Testimony to the Senate Banking Committee

By | February 15, 2023
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The following is Lee Reiners’ oral statement delivered in front of the United States Senate  Committee on Banking, Housing, And Urban Affairs  at the Committee’s February 14th hearing entitled, “Crypto Crash: Why Financial System Safeguards are Needed for Digital Assets.”    Thank you for inviting me to testify at today’s hearing. My name is Lee… Read More »