Coin Center Report: Which Digital Currencies Should Be Regulated as Securities

Coin Center, a US-based non-profit research and advocacy centre for cryptocurrencies, released a paper today offering a guide framework for the regulation of cryptocurrencies as securities. Authored by Peter Van Valkenburgh, Coin Center's director of research, the paper presents a framework based on the Howey test for an investment contract, as well as the underlying policy goals of securities regulation. Coin Center's work, says Van Valkenburgh, found that several "key variables" within the software underlying a cryptocurrency, and in the community that runs and maintains that....

The ongoing debate about the role of governments in regulating digital currencies isn't going away anytime soon. While the dustup over New York's BitLicense program continues, another front has opened up in California where a member of the state assembly has introduced a bill to regulate California's digital currencies businesses. The Washington, D. C. -based Coin Center and the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) each have lobbied hard against the New York Department of Financial Services attempts to regulate New York businesses with its controversial BitLicense....

The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS) released its model framework for states to use in designing regulations and made it clear it wants to see state governments take a proactive and rigorous approach to licensing and supervising "virtual currencies" businesses. The Conference report said:"... CSBS concluded that activities involving third-party control of virtual currency, including for the purposes of transmitting, exchanging, holding, or otherwise controlling virtual currency, should be subject to state licensure and supervision." Coin Center, a Washington based-advocacy group....

The Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, issued a note identifying the 'top emerging threats facing investors in 2015,' where the state agency warns investors of the risks associated with digital currencies. "We are living in an age where traditional financial and investing relationships are being transformed rapidly and sometimes in confusing fashion by technology and innovation," said Glenn E. Moyer, Secretary of Banking and Securities, in a statement. The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), of which the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and....

Jerry Brito, the executive director of Coin Center, which has been advocating for the advancement and free use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, says Bitcoin still needs about five more years to be powerful. Coin Center is a Washington think tank that studies the Blockchain and digital currencies. Brito, who has been involved in advising the government to take a light regulatory approach as the technologies evolve, thinks that now is the best time to get involved in the cryptocurrency. Jerry Brito has been a vocal Bitcoin advocate since 2014 when he launched Coin Center as an....