There were two big announcements in the crypto space this week and we anticipate that both will shape the dialogue in crypto circles over the course of the next few months.

NY AG Order re Bitfinex and Tether – the New York Attorney General announced an order requiring Bitfinex to provide certain information on its corporate activities to New York in connection with an investigation into Tether.  The central issue is whether Bitfinex used Tether funds to “hide the apparent loss of $850 million dollars of [Bitfinex] co-mingled client and corporate funds.”  The order was announced yesterday and sent the entire crypto market down 10%.  Bitfinex has released a statement in response to the order saying that Bitfinex and Tether are “financially strong – full stop.”  We anticipate this will be a major story over the next couple of weeks.

SeedInvest Receives ATS License – ever since the SEC released the DAO report in July 2017, firms have been trying to secure a broker-dealer with an Alternative Trading System.  A broker-dealer with an ATS designation would allow a digital asset trading platform to legally provide an exchange/trading service in the US.  SeedInvest (which was recently bought by Circle), through its affiliated broker-dealer SI Securities, just received the ATS designation (see here on page 11 – “The Firm operates an alternative trading system to facilitate the trading of securities previously purchased in private placement transactions through SI Securities.”).  The ATS designation in this instance allows the firm to have a trading system/platform for previously issues equity securities (private placements) and not for tokens; however, it is generally viewed that this is the first step toward FINRA ultimately allowing for the ATS designation to apply to a token platform.  We will see how this plays out with other platforms in the near future but this is certainly a sign that regulators are moving in the right direction.

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For more information on this topic, please see our collection of cryptocurrency fund legal and operational posts.

Bart Mallon is a founding partner of Cole-Frieman & Mallon LLP.  Cole-Frieman & Mallon has been instrumental in structuring the launches of some of the first cryptocurrency focused hedge funds. For more information on this topic, please contact Mr. Mallon directly at 415-868-5345.