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Professional investors will benefit from increased exposure to cryptoassets via traditional financial instruments, though retail investors’ exposure remains limited.

By Stuart Davis, Gabriel Lakeman, and Ivan Pizeta*

In the fast-paced world of cryptocurrency, regulatory clarity is essential for both investors and market participants. In March this year, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) made a significant announcement regarding listing cryptoasset-backed Exchange Traded Notes (cETNs) in the UK. This decision marks an important step towards greater regulatory clarity in the crypto industry and presents new opportunities for professional investors.

What Is the FCA’s Updated Position?

Traditionally, cryptoassets have posed challenges for regulators due to their decentralised and often volatile nature. However, now that cryptoassets have a more established trading history, the FCA determined that exchanges and professional investors should be able to understand whether cETNs meet their specific risk appetite. Consequently, the FCA updated its position and allowed the Recognised Investment Exchanges (RIEs) to create a UK listed market segment for cETNs. Notably, these products will be available exclusively to professional investors such as authorised investment firms and regulated credit institutions — the ban on the sale of cETNs to retail consumers remains in place.

Despite this approval, the FCA requires that stringent controls remain a prerequisite for exchanges seeking to list cETNs. These controls ensure cryptoasset trading remains orderly, that professional investors are adequately protected, and that the market segment is accessible to professional investors only. Additionally, cETNs must meet all requirements of the UK Listing Regime to maintain transparency and accountability, including provisions on prospectuses and ongoing disclosure.

What Does This Mean for Cryptoasset Regulation in the UK?

The FCA’s decision opens the door to further exploration of cryptoasset regulation. As RIEs consider creating new UK listed market segments, the FCA will assess applications on a case-by-case basis, ensuring adequate protection for professional investors. Moreover, RIEs must ensure that they fully understand the risks of admitting crypto-linked instruments to trading, and that their admission to trading criteria and trading controls will adequately mitigate those risks.

While the FCA is allowing exposure to cryptoassets through cETNs only to professional investors with certain protections in place, the regulator maintains that cETNs and cryptocurrency derivatives are unsuitable for retail consumers because of the potential harm they present. This stance introduces tension between limiting retail investors’ exposure to cETNs and crypto derivatives in order to protect those retail investors, and allowing those same retail investors exposure to cryptoassets via spot trades through cryptoasset businesses registered with the FCA under the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017.

With the FCA catching up on global regulatory developments and introducing further regulatory clarity, it will be interesting to observe future progress on retail investors’ exposure to cryptoassets and the complete ban on sale of cETNs and crypto derivatives to retail investors.

Latham & Watkins will continue to monitor regulatory developments in the cryptoassets industry.

* Admitted to practice in New York only.

Implementation of Basel Committee cryptoassets standard to provide additional clarity for banks looking to engage in cryptoassets business.

By Simon Hawkins and Adrian Fong

On 7 February 2024, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) released a consultation paper on its proposal for implementing new regulations on the prudential treatment of cryptoasset exposures (Consultation Paper).

The Consultation Paper comes shortly after the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and the HKMA issued a consultation paper in December 2023 outlining their legislative proposal for a regulatory regime governing stablecoin issuers in Hong Kong (see this Latham blog post). On 20 February 2024, the HKMA also published guidance on digital asset custody services and sale and distribution of tokenised products conducted by banks. Together, these papers offer guidance and greater certainty to banks interested in providing digital asset services (including digital asset issuance, custody, and dealing services).

This blog post summarises the proposed regulations set out in the Consultation Paper as well as next steps for banks, known in Hong Kong as authorised institutions (AI).

Initial Coin Offering

The proposed regulatory framework would create substantive obligations on issuers of fiat-referencing stablecoins to safeguard the public.

By Simon Hawkins and Adrian Fong

On 27 December 2023, the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) released a consultation paper on their legislative proposal for a regulatory regime governing stablecoin issuers in Hong Kong (Consultation Paper). The HKMA followed with its own press release announcing a future sandbox arrangement for stablecoin issuers.

This blog post summarises the proposed Hong Kong regulatory framework set out in the Consultation Paper, and next steps for stablecoin issuers who may fall within scope of the proposed regime.

Technology Circle Background

As regulatory thinking evolves, firms must ensure that any current or planned use of AI complies with regulatory expectations.

By Fiona M. Maclean, Becky Critchley, Gabriel Lakeman, Gary Whitehead, and Charlotte Collins

As financial services firms digest FS2/23, the joint Feedback Statement on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning issued by the FCA, Bank of England, and PRA (the regulators), and the UK government hosts the AI Safety Summit, we take stock of the government and the regulators’ thinking on AI to date, discuss what compliance considerations firms should be taking into account now, and look at what is coming next.

The FCA recently highlighted that we are reaching a tipping point whereby the UK government and sectoral regulators need to decide how to regulate and oversee the use of AI. Financial services firms will need to track developments closely to understand the impact they may have. However, the regulators have already set out how numerous areas of existing regulation are relevant to firms’ use of AI, so firms also need to ensure that any current use of AI is compliant with the existing regulatory framework.

MAS has published new requirements for DPT service providers and a consultation paper on additional regulations and prohibitions against unfair trading practices.

By Simon Hawkins, Farhana Sharmeen, Adrian Fong, and Tan Gen Huong

On 3 July 2023, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Singapore’s primary regulator for banks and payment services, announced new custody and segregation requirements for digital payment token (DPT) service providers, including new obligations to safekeep customer assets under a statutory trust.

Additionally, the MAS published a consultation paper (the Consultation Paper) seeking the public’s views on its proposed regulatory measures for DPT service providers and prohibitions against unfair trading practices. The Consultation Paper follows the MAS’ previous consultation paper on proposed regulatory measures for DPT services in December 2022.

The MAS’ proposals largely align with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission’s (SFC) new framework for regulating virtual asset trading platforms (VATP) (see Latham’s blog post), and indicate that virtual asset service providers must comply with regulatory rules similar to the securities regime. This aligned concept aims to ensure investor protection in line with regulators’ “same risk, same regulation” approach.

Congress will be “starting from scratch” in attempting to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins — an issue that many believe is the top digital asset legislative priority.

By Arthur S. Long, Parag Patel, Yvette Valdez, Pia Naib, and Deric Behar

On April 15, 2023, the US House Financial Services Committee (Committee) published a draft bill on the regulation of stablecoins in anticipation of a hearing by its Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion (Subcommittee) on April 19. Government entities from the Financial Stability Oversight Council to the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets have identified stablecoins as the one type of digital asset that most demands federal regulation. In the prior Congress, leaders of the Committee, Maxine Waters and Patrick McHenry, made material progress on the now published draft bill.

Notably, the April 15 draft bill as published would establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins that would be very similar to the existing framework for banks.

The new regime specifies licensing and reporting requirements for a range of activities related to virtual assets in the Emirate of Dubai.

By Brian A. Meenagh, Matthew Rodwell, and Ksenia Koroleva

On February 7, 2023, the Dubai Virtual Assets Regulation Authority (VARA) adopted the Virtual Assets and Related Activities Regulations 2023 (the Regulations) together with four compulsory and seven activity-specific rulebooks.

VARA adopted these Regulations further to Dubai Law No. 4 of March 11, 2022 on…

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The Guidance clarifies the regulator’s expectations on safekeeping customer digital assets, and the disclosures that must accompany such arrangements.

By Arthur S. Long, Parag Patel, Marlon Q. Paz, Yvette D. Valdez, Barrie VanBrackle, Pia Naib, Donald Thompson, and Deric Behar

On January 23, 2023, the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) published Guidance on Custodial Structures for Customer Protection in the Event of Insolvency (the Guidance). It guides virtual currency entities (VCEs)…

The HKMA’s discussion paper seeks feedback on its proposed regulatory approach to stablecoins, with responses due by 31 March 2022.

By Simon Hawkins and Adrian Fong

On 12 January 2022, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), Hong Kong’s principal regulator for banks and payment systems, published a discussion paper seeking the public’s views on its proposed approach to the regulation of stablecoins (Discussion Paper). The HKMA outlines its views on the development of stablecoins and proposes questions and its initial outlook for establishing an effective regulatory framework for stablecoin activities in Hong Kong.

The Discussion Paper comes three months after the HKMA issued its technical whitepaper on retail central bank digital currency in October 2021, which considers a proposed architecture for issuing e-HKD. These publications, together with recent consultation conclusions from the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau on implementing a regulatory regime for virtual asset service providers, (see Latham’s blog post), indicate that Hong Kong regulators are moving quickly to create guardrails as financial innovation accelerates.

An ambitious proposal could bring digital assets into the mainstream regulatory fold.

By Yvette D. Valdez, Stephen P. Wink, Adam Bruce Fovent, Adam Zuckerman, and Deric Behar

During an eventful summer for the digital assets industry, it may have been easy to miss US Representative Don Beyer’s introduction of the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act (the Bill) on July 28, 2021. The Bill is perhaps the most promising effort to date by Congress to enact legislation that would address some of the legal ambiguities for digital assets and better define their place within existing financial regulatory structures.

Rep. Beyer described the current legal landscape for digital assets as “ambiguous and dangerous for investors and consumers.” Broadly, the Bill seeks to address deficiencies and/or ambiguities relating to consumer protection, trade reporting and transparency, and anti-money laundering / know your client (AML/KYC) procedures for digital assets.

The Bill also seeks to address a wide range of practical issues, from the fundamental (such as defining industry terms and categorizing cryptoassets) to the more nuanced (such as establishing standards for transaction reporting and consumer protection and advisories).