b'INTRODUCTION2020 picked up right where 2019 left off. Notwithstanding the global pandemic, significant regulatory and legal developments in digital currency + blockchain continued during Q1 2020. Commissioner Hester Peirce of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC), sometimes referred to as Crypto Mom due to her positive views towards crypto, helped provide positive news for the industry by proposing a safe harbor for network developers to develop a functional or decentralized network even as the SEC rejected a tenth (at least) application for a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and continued to move forward with settlements and enforcement actions arising from initial coin offerings (ICOs) conducted in 2017 and 2018. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the CFTC) issued final interpretive guidance on actual delivery for virtual currencies. New York state regulators remained active in regulating cryptocurrency exchanges and issuers. Courts considered whether purchasers of tokens on the secondary market could bring claims under federal and state securities laws, as well as how to calculate damages to purchasers of tokens. Specifically:SEC and CFTC Guidance currency occurs when (1)a customer secures To provide network developers with a three- possession and control of the entire quantity year grace period to develop a functional orof the virtual currency and the ability to use the decentralized network, SEC Commissioner Peirceentire quantity of the virtual currency freely in proposed a safe harbor (which the SEC has notcommerce no later than 28 days from the date of yet indicated that it will adopt) that would exemptthe transaction and (2) the offeror and counterparty (1)the offer and sale of tokens from the provisionsseller do not retain any interest in, legal right to, or of the Securities Act of 1933 (the Securities Act)control over any of the virtual currency more than other than the antifraud provisions, (2) the tokens28 days from the date of the transaction.from registration under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act), and (3) personsSEC Regulation of Offerings and ETFsengaged in certain token transactions from theThe SEC qualified an offering of non-voting definitions of exchange, broker, and dealercommon stock of a company under Regulation under the Exchange Act.A+ that was intended to fund (among other things) To provide greater regulatory certainty for digitalthe development of a closed Ethereum-based asset financial services providers, the CFTCblockchain network and a proprietary digital delivered its final interpretive guidance that, forasset that would be structured so as not to be purposes of the Commodity Exchange Act (theconsidered a security. CEA), actual delivery in the context of virtual 4'