Editor: Jeffrey H. Matsuura

Digital Currency: An International Legal and Regulatory Compliance Guide

eBook: US $49 Special Offer (PDF + Printed Copy): US $123
Printed Copy: US $98
Library License: US $196
ISBN: 978-1-68108-224-0 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-68108-223-3 (Online)
Year of Publication: 2016
DOI: 10.2174/97816810822331160101

Introduction

Digital or ‘virtual’ currencies pose significant challenges for government, financial and legal institutions because of their non-physical nature and their relative anonymity to physical currency. These attributes make this form of exchange extremely volatile and, at the same time, attractive to criminals. Many countries around the world have, therefore issued warnings against the use of digital currencies and have enacted laws to regulate and in some cases, restrict their use among members under their respective jurisdictions.

Digital Currency: An International Legal and Regulatory Compliance Guide serves as a primer for both general and specialized readers, as well as business law and e-commerce teachers and students, to recognize and understand the extensive network of laws and regulations already in place around the world which have a profound impact on the creation, distribution and use of digital currency and blockchain technology. The book is also a compliance guide assisting legal practitioners in the fields of business, law, and technology to develop, implement, manage, and maintain strategies, policies, practices, and procedures to ensure that their activities involving digital currency and blockchain technology comply with a complex set of legal requirements in several jurisdictions. The book addresses both the complex set of existing laws that have a profound impact on digital currencies and blockchain technology, and the emerging new legal requirements directed specifically towards digital currency. Readers will understand the broad implications of laws and regulations on digital currency and blockchain development and its use, and will also be equipped with the knowledge to incorporate these effectively into their professional and personal endeavors. This entails maximizing the value of digital currency and blockchain technology while also minimizing their risk of adverse legal consequences. Additionally, policymakers seeking to enforce current legislations or wishing to draft appropriate new regulations in the digital currency and blockchain economy will also benefit from the information provided in this book.

Foreword

The key message presented by this book is that there is already a global, comprehensive, and complex framework of laws and regulations applicable to the creation, distribution, and use of digital currencies in effect at the present time. Many of the current headlines associated with virtual currencies around the world emphasize news as to new forms of regulatory oversight specifically directed toward those currencies which are emerging today. This book reminds us that although those newly emerging requirements will be important for the future of virtual currencies, an extremely wide range of laws and regulations are already applicable to those currencies. This book emphasizes the fact that participants in the digital currency economy are presently operating under substantial legal compliance obligations, despite the fact that many of those participants are not even aware of those obligations.

This book is accordingly both a primer on critical legal issues facing the virtual currency community around the world and a compliance guide, assisting that community to plan and launch their activities in a manner which reduces their risk of liability and loss. Readers of this book will learn that the need for legal compliance policies, practices, and procedures in the virtual currency community is not a challenge for the future, but is instead a fundamental requirement of today. Current initiatives to extend and diversify use of digital currencies and their associated computing platforms now operate under an expansive and complex framework of existing laws and regulations. The compliance challenges associated with that environment are numerous, complicated, and immediate. This book makes a significant and timely contribution to those compliance efforts. It provides a special resource for the virtual currency community around the world. Perhaps most important, this book underscores the critical message to the digital currency community that legal compliance is a current obligation, not an issue for the future.

Craig Blakeley
Alliance Law Group LLC
Global Information Technology Law
Brill Research Perspectives in International Information and Communications Technology Law


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