The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network released comprehensive guidance discussing money transmission regulations and how they apply to complex business models involving cryptocurrency and various cryptocurrency platforms and exchanges.

On Monday, the SEC entered an Order Instituting Cease and Desist Proceedings against a blockchain investment firm and its CEO for making material misrepresentations to its investors. 

Elizabeth Lan Davis, a former trial attorney at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a shareholder at Murphy & McGonigle, is a featured speaker at Synchronize 2019. Ms. Davis is speaking on the panel, "Crypto: Are Regulators Ready?" Other speakers on the panel include: Amir Zaidi, Director, Division of Market Oversight, CFTC; Alex Khachaturian, Director, Office of Emerging Regulatory Issues, FINRA; and Perianne Boring, Founder & President, Chamber of Digital Commerce.

Eric Powers of Kern County, California, entered into a consent order today, April 18, 2019, with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network for acting as an unregistered money transmitter.  FinCEN determined that Powers’ purchase and sale of Bitcoin for U.S. Dollars in over 1,700 “peer-to-peer” transactions from 2012 through 2014 made him an “exchanger” of convertible virtual currency. 

The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance issued both a "Framework for 'Investment Contract' Analysis of Digital Assets" and a no-action letter relating to a blockchain-based consumptive token on April 3, 2019.  The Framework is intended to be a plain English description of how the SEC staff applies the so-called Howey test to determine if a digital asset is a security under the federal securities laws.  It also adddresses the concept of mutability of a digital asset whereby a digital asset initially issued as a security later converts to a digital asset that is not a security because of the digital asset's use on a fully-functional platform, among other things.

The Division also issued a no-action letter to an air charter services company, TurnKey Jet, Inc.  The no-action letter permits TurnKey to issue a consumptive/utility token, subject to the criteria set out in the letter.

AirFox has taken the next step on the Path to Compliance laid out in its settlement with the SEC last year over allegations relating to the company's 2017 ICO.