Intro/Disclaimer: Since late 2022, I’ve prepared weekly updates for attorneys at my firm to stay abreast of the latest Web3 legal developments. The biggest stories are included in Bi-Weekly posts on the firm’s BitBlog, where we provide tl;dr overviews and insights into the biggest stories from the past two weeks. I post the weekly updates on my personal blog every Tuesday, where I also provide links to more obscure legal developments and otherwise discuss industry trends and stories. Please note, the views and opinions I express, both on BitBlog and my personal blog, are solely my own. They do not reflect the official stance or endorsement of my firm.
We made it to 2025! I am pretty sure last year the entire month of January my blog was still dated as 2023, so progress on that front! Will this be the year of crypto reaching mainstream adoption? Maybe! I’d be happy if I could just buy coffee with stablecoins (earning well above checking account interest when not in use). And at least that looks promising in 2025! I’m mostly just happy we have gone one more week without a major lawsuit being dropped in Gary Gensler’s last few weeks. Still plenty of time for that, though.
Here’s everything that happened last week in Web3 legal:
OTHER STORIES
What is “Crypto Lending”?: Whenever I see a biglaw lawyer in the space writing on their personal blog instead of their firm’s publications, I know it is going to be a banger. This was true with Jason Schwartz’s wallet rule breakdown, and it is true with this Drew Hinkes article on crypto lending.
AI Agents Hot in the Streets: Seems like people got bored over the holidays and went down rabbit holes about deploying crypto through “AI agents” (which is a horrible name, if the goal is “don’t have boomer judges apply agency law to ChatGPT bots” if/when it gets there).
IRS Delays Cost-Basis Reporting Rules: The IRS has postponed the centralized exchange reporting rules due to the exchanges and service providers not having the tech to implement those rules yet. I look forward to actually solid crypto tax reporting tools.
2024 Crypto Exploits: This was a fun trip down memory lane of the biggest crypto hacks/exploits of last year. I get to do a victory lap for Munchables after I called Blast protocol exploits as an inevitability when people were farming it hard. Some of these folks will be joining SBF soon, I think.
2024 Blockchain Gaming Look Back: Also good to see where we are leaving off 2024 in blockchain gaming. I called 2024 (and 2023 before that) as being the year blockchain games reach mainstream, and I was kind of right with Off the Grid getting a moment in the sun, but I am OFFICIALLY calling 2025 the year of crypto gaming (if I keep calling it, I will be right eventually. Probably).
Tether Down after MiCA Implementation: With MiCA’s stablecoin rules taking effect, people are dumping some of their USDT for assets which can be traded through EU exchanges (like USDC). At this point, Tether has faked it until they made it long enough that I would be shocked if they didn’t have their stuff together enough to be fully backed and just keep printing money off the interest (but then again, FTX was similarly too big to be stupid until it wasn’t). So seemingly a business decision by Tether not to play the EU game and focus efforts elsewhere.
FDIC Pause Letters Produced: The redactions on the FDIC pause letters which were ordered to be produced are public now. Mostly, banks just wanted to allow customers to buy and custody Bitcoin through the banks which the FDIC gave a big “nah” to. So, just to be clear, I can buy and custody currencies issued by nation-states controlled by despots/dictators through my bank, but not Bitcoin. Makes total sense.
Coinbase Explores Stock on Base: Coinbase is exploring making it possible to trade Coinbase shares on their layer-2: Base. No idea how they make this possible with the custody and barer stock prohibition issues, but would be fun to see in another decade or so.
CONCLUSION
If you have any questions or would like me to write about anything else, let me know on Twitter (X?) or Warpcast. As always, I am an attorney, I am not your attorney. For legal advice, you should always consult (and pay for) an attorney.
The NFTtorney 