New York’s BitLicense – License to Engage in Virtual Currency Business Activity

New York’s Department of Financial Services passed regulations which apply to virtual currencies, and require licensing of certain entities engaging in certain activities in connection with the state.  It is referred to by the State as the “BitLicense”.

The State says that any individual or entity which is involved in the following is required to obtain a BitLicense:

  • Virtual currency transmission
  • Storing, holding, or maintaining custody or control of virtual currency on behalf of others
  • Buying and selling virtual currency as a customer business
  • Performing exchange services as a customer business
  • Controlling, administering, or issuing a virtual currency.

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Federal Securities Laws applied to ICO’s – Initial Coin Offerings

New “coins” or tokens and their platforms are all the rage.  Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Zcash, Dash, Ripple, Monero, the list goes on and on and new ones keep popping up.  The new coins are either entirely their own platform or they are derivations, i.e. spin-offs of one of the existing virtual currency platforms. Read more

Introduction to Blockchain and Smart Contracts

Technology is permeating all aspects of society.  Legal constructs are the latest to be infiltrated. We will discuss some of them in upcoming posts, including blockchain, smart contracts and related concepts.  First we need the building blocks to understand how the blockchain works.

Bblockchain is a form of a decentralized ledger technology.   It is decentralized, or distributed, because it operates on a peer to peer basis.  There is no centralized database of the chain or any blocks. Instead, for each blockchain there are various computers or servers which operate as “nodes” for the applicable chain.  Each node contains the entire chain, and nodes review any proposed block and it must be verified prior to it being added to the chain. Nodes can be anonymous. Read more