Those who follow cryptocurrencies will know that an initial coin offering (ICO) refers to the issuance of digital tokens to finance a blockchain-based venture. They will also know that the legal status of tokens is an ongoing discussion among market participants and regulators. ICOs have attracted policymakers’…
The seven-year saga of Madden v. Midland began as a dispute over a four-figure consumer debt. But billions of dollars' worth of loans, and the future of consumer lending markets, now hang in the balance. Madden began in 2011 as a lawsuit based on a claim of…
Last month, the House Financial Services Committee voted to overturn 2014 SEC regulations requiring larger Money Market Funds to mark their shares to Net Asset Value (NAV) on a daily basis, rather than “penny rounding,” i.e. rounding their share values to the nearest cent on the dollar.[1]…
On Friday, the Treasury Department released a report on Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) designations. This report could have addressed the problem underlying FSOC’s designation authority: the fact that it makes explicit which financial institutions are “too big to fail,” paving the way for more bailouts of…
(Originally appeared November 12, 2014) This past weekend I took part in a Liberty Fund conference having as its main topic David Graeber's Debt: the First 5000 Years (Melville House, 2011), but also addressing parts of Felix Martin's Money: The Unauthorized Biography (Knopf, 2014). Although Martin is…