Category:Blockchain & Smart Contracts

1
”A lot of water to flow under the bridge”: central banks around the world provide their initial response to Facebook’s Libra
2
New FATF Guidance Will Significantly Impact the Crypto Industry
3
Banks Invest in Developing a Digital Blockchain Settlement System
4
ECB Task Force recommends regulation of crypto-asset gatekeepers
5
ASX Takes First Steps in introducing its Blockchain-Based Replacement to CHESS
6
Bank of Canada and Monetary Authority of Singapore jointly publish report on the use of blockchain in making cross-border payments
7
Italy’s legal recognition of blockchain-based timestamping
8
More Companies Adopting Blockchain Solutions
9
Australian Government announces the establishment of the national blockchain roadmap
10
American Bar Association Publishes White Paper on Digital and Digitized Assets

”A lot of water to flow under the bridge”: central banks around the world provide their initial response to Facebook’s Libra

Jim Bulling and Felix Charlesworth

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) along with several other central banks, have provided their initial responses to the recent announcement by Facebook (in conjunction with businesses such as MasterCard, Spotify and PayPal) of its plans to create a new blockchain based currency and payment system known as Libra.

Read More

New FATF Guidance Will Significantly Impact the Crypto Industry

By Jeremy McLaughlin and Judie Rinearson

The Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”), an intergovernmental organization aimed at combatting money laundering and thwarting terrorist financing, recently issued final recommendations for the regulation of cryptocurrencies.  Although the recommendations are not binding on members–it will be up to each of FATF’s 37 member countries to determine whether to enact the recommendations through legislation or regulation–it is expected that they will have widespread adoption and significant implications for the cryptocurrency industry.

Read More

Banks Invest in Developing a Digital Blockchain Settlement System

By Jim Bulling, Felix Charlesworth and Andrew Fay

Late last month, several of the world’s largest banks invested $50 million in a digital cash settlement project with the aim of developing a more efficient clearing and settlement system. The new technology, referred to as the ‘utility settlement coin’ (USC), has been a work in progress since 2015, after Swiss bank UBS Group and London-based technology startup Clearmatics announced to the market that they had commenced working on the project.

Read More

ECB Task Force recommends regulation of crypto-asset gatekeepers

By Giovanni Campi

The European Central Bank’s Internal Crypto-Assets Task Force (“ICA-TF”) issued a report analysing the implications of crypto-assets for financial stability, monetary policy, payments and financial markets infrastructures (“FMIs”).

Read More

ASX Takes First Steps in introducing its Blockchain-Based Replacement to CHESS

By Jim Bulling, Felix Charlesworth and Andrew Fay

On 30 April 2019, Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) released the first of seven “drops” of software code into the “Customer Development Environment”. This marks the beginning of the introduction of the new equities clearing and settlement system, which ASX is developing to replace the existing CHESS system. The new system is based on distributed ledger technology (DLT) and promises to provide customers with access to real-time, synchronised, source-of-truth data.

Read More

Bank of Canada and Monetary Authority of Singapore jointly publish report on the use of blockchain in making cross-border payments

Jim Bulling and Felix Charlesworth

Two central banks have taken steps to facilitate cross border payments through the use of blockchain. On 1 May 2019, the Bank of Canada (BOC) and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) jointly published a report on their trials of settling tokenised digital currencies across different blockchain platforms (Report).

Read More

Italy’s legal recognition of blockchain-based timestamping

By Claude-Étienne Armingaud and Alessandra Feller

Italian law no.12/19 dated 11 January 2019 (the “Law”) came into force on 13 February 2019 and cemented the legal enforceability of electronic timestamping performed through blockchain technologies.

As part of a national reform pertaining to the simplification of administrative formalities for companies, the Law explicitly states in its Article 8 ter, 3° that “storage of a computerized document through the use of technologies passed on distributed ledger creates the same legal effect as ‘electronic time stamp’”, as defined in the European Regulation no. 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions dated 23 July 2014 (“eIDAS”).

Read More

More Companies Adopting Blockchain Solutions

By Susan Kayser, Christopher Bloom and Eric Lee

While still an emerging technology, more companies are implementing blockchain technology to manage supply chains, track goods, prevent counterfeiting, increase security, and ensure traceability.  In a recent survey of global leaders, by auditing and financial services company KPMG, 48% of respondents stated they believe it is highly likely that blockchain will change the way their companies do business over the next three years, and 41% stated their company intends to implement blockchain technology during the next three years.

Read More

Australian Government announces the establishment of the national blockchain roadmap

By Jim Bulling & Felix Charlesworth

On 18 March 2019, the Federal Australian Government announced its plan to establish the national blockchain roadmap (Roadmap) which intends to focus developing regulation, skills and capacity building, innovation, investment and international competitiveness in the emerging local blockchain industry.

Read More

American Bar Association Publishes White Paper on Digital and Digitized Assets

By Clifford C. Histed

On March 13, 2019, the American Bar Association’s Derivatives and Futures Law Committee published a white paper called Digital and Digitized Assets: Federal and State Jurisdictional Issues.  As stated in its preface, this White Paper was prepared by members of the Jurisdiction Working Group of the Innovative Digitized Products and Processes Subcommittee (“IDPPS”) and their colleagues, who generously contributed substantial time and effort to this ambitious undertaking. The authors have sought to provide a comprehensive explanation of federal and state laws that may apply to the creation, offer, use and trading of digital assets in the United States, along with summaries of key initiatives outside the United States. The White Paper also recommends an analytic framework for considering potential issues of jurisdictional overlap between the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission under the separate federal statutes they each are responsible for administering.

Read More

Copyright © 2024, K&L Gates LLP. All Rights Reserved.