Digital Assets
11 articles
California DFAL License Requirements: Who Needs One in 2026?
California's Digital Financial Assets Law is now live, and it is not the law businesses spent the spring preparing for. Who needs a DFPI license, who is exempt, what S.B. 97 rewrote one day before the deadline, and why the $500,000 surety bond everyone cites does not exist.
Ethereum Staking Regulation in 2026: What Institutions Can Rely On, and What Only Congress Can Settle
Ethereum staking went from enforcement target to regulated-product feature in three years. But everything institutions now build on is rescindable guidance—and that durability gap is what the CLARITY Act is actually for.
CFTC Crypto Enforcement Tracker (2021-2026): Actions, Penalties, and the End of "Regulation by Enforcement"
A data-driven tracker of CFTC digital-asset enforcement. The Commission posted a record $17.1 billion in monetary relief in fiscal 2024—driven by the $12.7 billion FTX recovery, the largest in its history—then consolidated its enforcement task forces into two in 2025 to "stop regulation by enforcement." Includes the fiscal-year-by-year record, the marquee actions (Binance, FTX, Ooki DAO, BitMEX, Tether), and a framework for reading CFTC risk. Confirm figures against the primary release.
Crypto Enforcement Tracker (2024-2026): SEC and CFTC Actions, Penalties, and the Atkins Reversal
A data-driven tracker of notable U.S. crypto enforcement actions across the 2024-2026 inflection. SEC crypto enforcement fell from 33 actions in 2024 to 13 in 2025—a 60% drop—and monetary penalties fell to $142 million, less than 3% of the 2024 penalty total, as the Commission dismissed its registration-theory cases while continuing to prosecute fraud. Includes the action-by-action table, the CFTC picture, and a framework for reading enforcement risk today. Confirm figures against the primary release.
NFT Regulation 2025: After the SEC Enforcement Retreat
The SEC closed major NFT investigations into OpenSea and Yuga Labs in early 2025, marking a dramatic shift from its aggressive 2022-2024 enforcement strategy. Here's what changed, what it means for NFT creators and marketplaces, and how to structure compliant NFT projects going forward.
The SEC/CFTC Token Taxonomy: What the Five Categories Mean for Your Token
The March 2026 SEC/CFTC joint release established five token categories. Which one applies determines your regulator, registration obligations, and compliance path.
The CLARITY Act (H.R. 3633) Explained: How It Would Split SEC and CFTC Jurisdiction
The CLARITY Act—H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025—passed the House and is now before the Senate. It would give the CFTC authority over digital commodities, including spot markets, and turn on a "mature blockchain" test rather than a named Bitcoin/Ether carve-out. Here is what the actual bill says, and what it does not.
The SEC's Crypto Pivot: What the Dismissals and New Rules Mean for Your Startup
The SEC dismissed its biggest crypto cases with prejudice, issued staff guidance, and adopted an interpretive token framework. For founders, the question shifted from "will the SEC sue me?" to "what does the new framework require—and how much of it actually binds?"
Crypto Treasury Management in 2026: Custody, Accounting, and Compliance
Three things changed how crypto treasuries work in 2025-2026—crypto is now a fair-value asset, the bank-access climate flipped open, and California's first custody regime arrives July 1, 2026. Here is where a crypto treasury sits today.
Tokenized Treasury Funds in 2026: A Securities, Tax, and Custody Compliance Framework (BlackRock BUIDL, Franklin BENJI, Ondo OUSG, Circle USYC)
Tokenized treasury funds crossed approximately $15 billion in aggregate AUM by early May 2026. The wrapper does not change the legal regime—but custody, tax, and transfer-restriction architecture diverge sharply by product. A framework for issuers and allocators.
Agents with Wallets, Agents in Vaults: A KYA Analysis of Claude Managed Agents for Digital Assets and Regulated Industries
Claude Managed Agents' architecture—persistent sessions, MCP connectors, bash execution, cloud-hosted containers—creates regulatory triggers self-hosted agents don't face. A former SEC Honors Program intern in the SEC's Cyber Unit maps the compliance gaps with the KYA Five Pillars framework.
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