Crypto, FinTech & Digital Assets

Recent Articles

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  19/04/2024

  United Kingdom

  Digital asset insolvency issues not insoluble for English law

  Digital assets may be new, but existing English insolvency laws and principles can deal with them. So finds the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce (UKJT) in its ‘Legal Statement on Digital Assets and English Insolvency Law’, published this week.Key takeaways include:English insolvency law is entirely capable of application to scenarios concerning digital assets, including the technical and fact-specific issues that may arise. Digital assets are capable of amounting to property for the purposes of English insolvency law. When figuring out which country has jurisdiction, the English...

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  28/03/2024

  United Kingdom

  UK Cryptoasset Regulation – 2023 developments and what’s to come in 2024 (Part 2)

  In Part 1 of this two-part series, we provided an overview of the myriad developments in the regulation of cryptoasset activities in the UK in 2023 and the first two months of 2024, and looked ahead to what is still to come.In Part 2, we take a step back to assess what these developments mean in the round for cryptoasset businesses providing services in or to the UK, and how that is set to change.A. Overview of the current and future landscapeCurrent position  Key takeawaysNon-security tokens: A business currently needs to be registered...

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  25/03/2024

  United Kingdom

  Introduction to the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework

  The market for Crypto Assets is growing rapidly. Crypto Assets can be issued, recorded, transferred and stored in a decentralised manner, without the need to rely on traditional financial intermediaries or central administrators. Further, the Crypto-Asset market has given rise to a new set of intermediaries and other service providers, such as Crypto-Asset exchanges and wallet providers, which may currently only be subject to limited regulatory oversight. Overall, the characteristics of the Crypto-Asset sector have reduced tax administrations’ visibility on tax-relevant activities carried...

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  11/03/2024

  United Kingdom

  UK Cryptoasset Regulation – 2023 developments and what’s to come in 2024 (Part 1)

  2023 will be remembered as the year the cogs of the UK legislative and regulatory machine finally began to crank meaningfully into gear in relation to cryptoassets, with a raft of legislation, consultations and discussion papers published. Through these initiatives, the UK is paving the way for a comprehensive regulatory regime to rival those in other jurisdictions with early-mover advantage, such as the European Union, Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong.With a range of critical frameworks and rules set to be enacted in 2024, the pace of this legislative and regulatory development shows no sign of...

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  07/03/2024

  United Kingdom

  Introduction to Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, the new OECD international standard on automatic exchange of information and amendments to the CRS

  In 2023, the OECD conducted its first comprehensive review of the Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) since CRS was adopted by the OECD in 2014. This has resulted in amendments in two key areas:(A) The introduction of a new tax transparency Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (“CARF”) which provides for the automatic exchange of tax information on transactions in Crypto-AssetsThis is to address the emergence of Crypto-Assets, which can be transferred and held without interacting with traditional financial intermediaries and without any central administrator having full visibility...

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  26/02/2024

  England and Wales

  Law Commission’s draft Digital Assets Bill – welcome news for the UK

  Following an extensive consultation and publication of its final report in June 2023, the Law Commission has now published its draft Digital Assets Bill (the “Bill”). The Bill is designed “to ensure that the law remains dynamic, highly competitive, and flexible, so that it can support transactions and other arrangements involving digital asset technology” and aims “to help to achieve the UK Government’s stated goal of the jurisdiction of England and Wales becoming a global hub for digital assets, and in particular, for crypto-tokens and crypto-token systems”.The...

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