The Lummis/Gillibrand Crypto Bill: Is the 'Ancillary Token' Approach the Best Way? - Ep. 361

Lewis Cohen, lead attorney at DLx Law LLC, joins to discuss the recently proposed Lummis-Gillibrand bill, the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, which he helped shape. In this episode, we cover: how Lewis was impressed by Gillibrand’s and Lummis’s offices’ hard work and bipartisanship how the bill creates a new definition for an “ancillary asset” with split oversight responsibilities between the CFTC and the SEC how the bill proposes a test of managerial centralization as a determinant of disclosure requirements for digital assets his response to criticism that the ancillary token approach is more complicated than need be and gives too much power to the SEC why the bill didn't adopt an approach more similar to something like SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce’s token safe harbor proposal how Lewis would respond to SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s contention that the vast majority of digital assets are securities how Cohen is concerned about legislation or regulation impinging on basic freedoms to transact by over-applying securities regulation what kind of SEC disclosures will be required for “ancillary assets” and the requirements for projects to be able to cease mandatory disclosure how the bill defines stablecoins whether the requirement for stablecoins to maintain reserves means the end of algorithmic stablecoins or whether they will just be called something else how the bill handles DAOs and how legislation in this area must be delicate why Lewis believes the proposal is a “bright spot” for thoughtful US legislation and bipartisanship why he doesn’t see the bill being adopted in the current Congress Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unconfirmedcardearnfeb2021 Ava Labs: https://avax.network EPISODE LINKS Lewis Cohen DLx Law LLC: https://dlxlaw.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/NYcryptolawyer LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewis-cohen-a3211410/ Lummis-Gillibrand Proposal (Responsible Financial Innovation Act) Legal Memo from DLXLaw : https://dlxlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DLX_FSV-summary_RFIA_060722.pdf Lummis-Gillibrand Section by Section Overview (summary by bill authors): https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lummis-Gillibrand%20Section-by-Section%20%5bFinal%5d.pdf Responsible Financial Innovation Act (full text): https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Lummis-Gillibrand%20Responsible%20Financial%20Innovation%20Act%20%5bFinal%5d.pdf Blog post intro (by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) : https://gillibrandny.medium.com/the-responsible-financial-innovation-act-218a764abd6c Commentary: CoinDesk recap: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/06/07/key-us-senators-introduce-bill-outlining-sweeping-plan-for-future-crypto-rules/ Fortune on what the bill means for algo stablecoins: https://fortune.com/2022/06/08/algorithmic-stablecoins-terra-luna-crypto-regulation-senate-bill-lummis-gillibrand/ JW Verret's critique: https://twitter.com/JWVerret/status/1534165678831325191?s=20&t=nIWYdZKJzXsr-SVK7F_W9w Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices