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1/ Regulation and Law Panel at #MITBlockchainExpo with @lindsayxlin @katherineykwu @valkenburgh and @CaitlinLong_
2/ Notes from @valkenburgh
3/ Coin Center’s goal is to think about what the major issues are going to be important politically over next ~3 years and try to start preparing political system to deal with that in a good way
4/ In 2014, around the time of ETH crowd sale, they were focused on securities law which turned into a big thing in the ICO boom in 17/18
5/ Overall, seems like SEC has been pretty good and that most of the ICOs they are calling securities, really are securities according to the Howey Test
6/ Today, they are thinking a lot about robust, privacy focused blockchains, and how to educate politicians about the importance of cash to human dignity
7/ There was a “crypto war” in the 1990s where cryptography was restricted under munitions export laws where
8/ There is lack of clarification in case law as to whether cryptography should be regulated as speech or expressive conduct (stuff like lighting a flag on fire or dancing nude). Speech is protected by the constitution, but expressive conduct is more easily restricted.
9/ Notes from @LindsayxLin
10/ Two big buckets to think about for in house counsel are
11/ 1.What regulations are already on the books that effect us - basically means monitoring regulators
12/ 2. What is coming down the pipeline
13/ Main thing to protect against is regulators trying to force crypto into existing financial rails which would lose all the benefit
14/ @Zooko was really persistent in talking with regulators in NY to allow shielded transactions even with BitLicense. Shows regulators are people too and talking to them about privacy as a human right can resonate.
15/ Notes from @CaitlinLong_
16/ Securities are regulated at federal level, but property and commodity laws are regulated at the state level.
17/ Wyoming has passed 13 bills aggressively pro innovation including no taxes on crypto at any point
18/ Wyoming law also now says that Bitcoin is property which means you can do P2P lending, including smart contracts.
19/ In Wyoming, Bitcoin is under the same rules as money, that means in practice if you buy bitcoin from someone, you don’t have to formally verify that they own the bitcoin.
20/ There is a sandbox of sorts in Wyoming (didn't fully catch the parameters)
21/ Main two opponents have been the banking industry and Uniform Law Commission
22/ Uniform Law Commission tried to force a law that people could only own BTC through a registered securities association, basically forcing BTC in existing financial system rails
23/ Wyoming also has a law which means that even if you have crypto with a custodian then it is legally yours, it’s like valeting your car. You don’t have control, but you still own it.
24/ Notes from @katherineykwu
25/ We might not want clarification too soon from SEC, BitLicense was early clarification but bad
26/ Crowdfunding happened mostly through the states, so leaving it to states may be better long term
27/ Hong Kong SFC (Combination of CFTC and SEC for HK) has taken a very different approach in that they are not assuming ICOs are securities by default
28/ HK has basically created a sandbox that gives companies 12 months to prove they are not violating any legal systems so many companies may continue to move though.
29/ All errors and omissions are mine, not those of the panelists
