Requiescat Diem. Launched with great fanfare three years ago as Libra, the Facebook/Meta-led blockchain stablecoin effort now called Diem announced January 31 that it will shut down and sell its assets to Silvergate Capital Corporation.
Libra was launched June 18, 2019, with support by many key finance and payments industry participants. Libra aspired to become a worldwide blockchain-based stablecoin payment system. Initially envisioned as a multi-currency stablecoin, Libra was to be backed by a basket of reserve assets including fiat currencies and short-term government ...
Paxos Settlement Service announced February 20, 2020 that it has commenced P2P settlement of US listed equity trades over a private, permissioned blockchain with Credit Suisse and Instinet (a Nomura Bank subsidiary). Paxos expects Societe Generale will join soon.
Paxos is registered with the New York Department of Financial Services and regulated as a limited-purpose trust company.
Late last year, Paxos obtained SEC No-Action relief from clearing-agency registration, limited to a “Feasibility Study No-Action Phase” restricted to a maximum of seven participants for 24 ...
Late last week, the SEC issued a no-action letter widely hailed as its first on a blockchain-based digital token for private jet services. In its TurnKey Jet letter, the Commission Staff indicated it would not recommend enforcement action over the operation of a private, permissioned, centralized blockchain network and smart-contract infrastructure for clearing and payment using a utility-token effectively functioning as a pre-paid jet card (or streetcar token).
See TurnKey Jet, Inc. (Apr. 3, 2019), here.
And the request, here.
CoinDesk reports that the no-action ...
This week, the SEC's Division of Investment Management issued a letter seeking industry and public input on custody issues arising from digital assets.
The "Custody Rule," Rule 206(4)-2 under the Advisers Act of 1940, provides it is a fraudulent act or practice to have custody of client assets, unless an adviser complies with Custody-Rule requirements, including among others, by a qualified custodian subject to annual independent audits.
The Division's recent Guidance Update on custody issues focused on inadvertent custody (e.g. where boilerplate in the adviser’s agreement ...
On September 11, FINRA announced its filing of an enforcement action accusing a Massachusetts broker of fraud and registration violations arising from his sale of an unregistered cryptocurrency, "HempCoin." It is FINRA's first cryptocurrency enforcement action.
FINRA alleges Timothy Ayre of fraudulently attempting to bolster his worthless public shell company, Rocky Mountain Ayre, Inc. (RMTN in the OTC pink sheets). Ayre alleged repackaged HempCoin as a security backed by RMTN common stock, marketing it as "the world's first currency to represent equity ownership" in a ...