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The crypto frontier: How US policymakers and investment advisers can address digital assets
Journal of Financial Compliance,
7
(1),
53-63
(2023)
Abstract
This paper focuses on prominent issues surrounding digital assets. The lack of a comprehensive federal digital asset law has recently raised several issues for Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered investment advisers as they try to navigate new markets and new industry practices. As such, this paper addresses the current US regulatory landscape, provides a comparison of non-US approaches to digital assets and provides US policymakers with key principles they can consider for potential digital asset legislation and/or regulation. The paper also provides compliance considerations for investment advisers who currently manage digital assets, to address the evolving obligations under the US securities laws.
Keywords: Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC); investment adviser; compliance; digital assets; cryptocurrency; crypto-assets
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
William Nelson is an associate general counsel at the Investment Adviser Association (IAA). For more than 85 years, the IAA has been advocating for advisers before Congress and US and global regulators, promoting best practices and providing education and resources to empower investment advisers to serve their clients. The IAA's member firms manage more than US$35tn in assets for a wide variety of individual and institutional clients. Prior to joining the IAA, William served as Chief Compliance Officer for Mercer Advisors, one of the largest independent SEC-registered investment advisers in the US, where he served as the subject matter expert on all legal and regulatory compliance issues. William previously served as Assistant General Counsel and Public Policy Counsel for Certified Financial Planner Board and has held multiple roles as an attorney with the US Departments of Justice and Veterans Affairs. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, teaching securities law, previously taught at George Washington University Law School, currently serves as Vice Chair for the DC Bar's Corporation, Finance and Securities Law Community and serves as a member of the North American Securities Administrators Association's (NASAA's) Senior Issues Advisory Committee. William is regularly invited to speak at industry events, has been published in several scholarly law journals and his work has been cited in legal treatises, state and federal court decisions. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Tulsa, his JD with Honors from the University of Tulsa College of Law and his LLM from the George Washington University Law School.
