The SEC has been criticized for failing to attempt either to make clear when a digital asset is, or is not, a security; and has not made any attempt to develop a disclosure regime tailored to digital assets.

This case presents a different problem. Here the type of financing program at issue is clearly a security under Reves. It is not a close call. 

In Coinbase, the issue involved a lending program that Coinbase wanted to initiate, but was . That case was problematic…

In the report, OFR tells us, "[a]s a frontier risk, climate-related financial risk—though difficult to model and forecast within the financial system—presents an increasing threat to financial stability. Being able to assess it accurately is vital to mitigating its effects." Put differently, OFR acknowledges that it cannot measure the risk that climate change poses to financial stability, and it cannot demonstrate that climate change is a financial stability risk, or how risky it is,…

This is an important and detailed report. FINRA should be commended for its production. The very detail and scope of the report demonstrates how great are the regulatory burdens imposed on firms, not only as to their own conduct, but also as to surveillance on their customers. The report demonstrates the challenge firms - particularly smaller firms - face in their efforts to keep up.

Given the extraordinary penalties that the SEC has been imposing for recordkeeping failures, $200,000 certainly looks like a loose-change penalty that both the firm and its lawyers should feel good about.

On the other hand, it's not really clear why any money penalty should be imposed. All across the street, firms are struggling to keep up with new communications technologies and the recordkeeping problems that they create. Here, the firm thought it had a solution to the problem.…