Archive:January 2023

1
Federal Reserve Issues Policy Statement Limiting Crypto-Activities of State Member Banks
2
DeFi Regulatory Alert: CFTC Files Its First Ever Oracle Manipulation Case
3
“Joint Statement on Crypto-Asset Risks to Banking Organizations” Will Significantly Impact Cryptocurrency Companies and Their Banking Relationships

Federal Reserve Issues Policy Statement Limiting Crypto-Activities of State Member Banks

By Grant F. Butler, Carly E. Howard, Andrew M. Hinkes

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve (the “FRB”) issued a policy statement that interprets Section 9(13) of the Federal Reserve Act to limit state member banks to engage as principal in only activities that are (a) permissible for a national bank or (b) explicitly permissible for state banks under federal law.  The activity restrictions apply equally to insured and uninsured state member banks supervised directly by the FRB. 

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DeFi Regulatory Alert: CFTC Files Its First Ever Oracle Manipulation Case

By Andrew M. Hinkes, Clifford C. Histed, Cheryl L. Isaac, and Maxwell J. Black

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) filed a civil enforcement action this week against Avraham Eisenberg, charging him with a scheme to defraud others and engage in price manipulation (as announced by the CFTC here). While there have been other enforcement actions related to decentralized finance (“DeFi”) protocols, this is the first case in which the CFTC has charged a person for fraud in connection with “oracle manipulation” on a decentralized exchange.  In addition to this CFTC action, the U.S. Department of Justice previously charged Eisenberg with criminal fraud and commodity price manipulation in connection with this same alleged scheme.

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“Joint Statement on Crypto-Asset Risks to Banking Organizations” Will Significantly Impact Cryptocurrency Companies and Their Banking Relationships

By Grant F. Butler, Andrew M. Hinkes, Jeremy McLaughlin, Judie Rinearson

The US Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (the “Agencies”)  today issued a joint statement reiterating their ongoing concerns with crypto-asset activities entering the banking sector.  See: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/files/bcreg20230103a1.pdf

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