Blockchain and Digital Assets

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Blockchain and digital asset legal counsel for exchanges, token projects, and NFT platforms, covering securities and money transmission compliance, AML and KYC obligations, token offering structures, and IP and licensing for on-chain assets.

Blockchain and digital assets sit at a crossroads of finance, technology, and regulation that few law firms genuinely understand at the code level. Ours does. Our attorneys read smart contracts and understand how tokens, custody, and consensus actually work, which means we can give blockchain companies, exchanges, and digital asset projects advice grounded in how the technology behaves, not just how a regulator describes it.

Regulatory Compliance

Digital asset regulation is unsettled and overlapping, and the wrong assumption can be expensive. We advise on where your activity falls under SEC and CFTC frameworks, when state money transmission licensing applies, and how to build AML and KYC programs that satisfy examiners. For projects with global users, we help reconcile US obligations with the international rules that reach your customers, and we run securities-law analysis on the tokens at the center of it all.

Token Offerings and Fundraising

How you raise capital determines how much regulatory exposure you carry. We structure token offerings to fit the path that matches your goals, whether that is a security token offering, a utility token sale, a SAFT or similar investment instrument, or a Regulation D or Regulation S placement. We document each round so the legal characterization of your token is deliberate and defensible rather than something you reverse-engineer under pressure later.

NFTs and Digital Collectibles

An NFT is a token, not a transfer of copyright, and that gap creates real legal risk. We sort out exactly what IP rights a buyer receives, draft licensing terms that match what you intend to sell, and build creator royalty structures that hold up off-platform. We also write marketplace terms and policies and address the consumer protection questions that increasingly surround digital collectibles and the platforms that trade them.

Frequently asked questions

Often the safest assumption is that it might be, until analysis shows otherwise. US regulators apply the Howey test, which looks at whether buyers expect profits from the efforts of others, so how you market and structure the token matters as much as the tech. A token sold to fund development with promises of appreciation looks very different from one with genuine present utility. Get this analyzed before you sell, because a misclassified offering can trigger registration and enforcement problems.

Quite possibly. Many crypto businesses that hold or move customer funds are treated as money services businesses, requiring federal FinCEN registration and state-by-state money transmitter licenses. The analysis depends on whether you take custody and how the transfers work. Map your transaction flows early, because building licensing into your launch plan is far easier than retrofitting it after you've onboarded users.

If you qualify as a money services business, you must maintain an AML program, verify customer identities, monitor for suspicious activity, file the required reports, and screen against sanctions lists. These obligations apply even though the technology is decentralized, and regulators expect documented procedures, not good intentions. Build the compliance program before launch and assign someone clear ownership of it.

By default, buying an NFT transfers the token, not the copyright in the underlying art, so the creator keeps the IP unless your terms say otherwise. Spell out exactly what rights the buyer receives — display, commercial use, derivatives, or none — in license terms attached to the sale. Clear, on-record licensing prevents disputes when a collector tries to commercialize something you only meant them to display.

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