Original Mayer Brown content, perspectives and insights from across our global platform that touch on digital assets, decentralized finance, cryptocurrencies and related fields.
White House Executive Order on Digital Assets. On March 9, 2022, President Biden signed an executive order titled “Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets” (the “Order”). The Order directs a broad range of federal agencies to recommend legislative and regulatory proposals to foster the development of, and address the risks presented by, digital assets and a central bank digital currency. This Legal Update provides an overview of the Order and details on each of the reports to be produced pursuant to it.
Looking to Invest In or Acquire a Digital Assets Business? Watch Where You Step—Realizing Value and Managing Risk. Realizing value and managing risk in investments in and acquisitions of digital assets businesses means understanding several key areas of the target’s business—among them, cybersecurity, data privacy and regulatory positions. As valuations increase and investment capital flows into the digital assets sector, the negative impacts of missteps in these areas have also expanded significantly. In this piece, we examine a few key areas of focus to keep these investments and acquisitions on track.
Decentralized Insurance: Coverage Considerations for DeFi. Interest in decentralized insurance solutions has increased alongside growth in DeFi generally. Whether these solutaions offer insurance coverage of events in the DeFi ecosystem or insurance policies that are decentralized and blockchain-native, providers will need to ensure that their operations are in compliance with the insurance regulatory regime in the United States. In this Legal Update, we discuss some considerations for structuring an insurance provider’s operations that will apply to providers of coverage to DeFi.