Lewis Cohen, lead attorney at DLx Law LLC, joins to discuss the recently proposed Lummis-Gillibrand bill, the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, which he helped shape.
In this episode, we cover:
- how Lewis was impressed by Gillibrand’s and Lummis’s offices’ hard work and bipartisanship
- how the bill creates a new definition for an “ancillary asset” with split oversight responsibilities between the CFTC and the SEC
- how the bill proposes a test of managerial centralization as a determinant of disclosure requirements for digital assets
- his response to criticism that the ancillary token approach is more complicated than need be and gives too much power to the SEC
- why the bill didn’t adopt an approach more similar to something like SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce’s token safe harbor proposal
- how Lewis would respond to SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s contention that the vast majority of digital assets are securities
- how Cohen is concerned about legislation or regulation impinging on basic freedoms to transact by over-applying securities regulation
- what kind of SEC disclosures will be required for “ancillary assets” and the requirements for projects to be able to cease mandatory disclosure
- how the bill defines stablecoins
- whether the requirement for stablecoins to maintain reserves means the end of algorithmic stablecoins or whether they will just be called something else
- how the bill handles DAOs and how legislation in this area must be delicate
- why Lewis believes the proposal is a “bright spot” for thoughtful US legislation and bipartisanship
- why he doesn’t see the bill being adopted in the current Congress
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EPISODE LINKS
Lewis Cohen
Lummis-Gillibrand Proposal (Responsible Financial Innovation Act)
Commentary:
