Paradigm Files Amicus Brief in SEC's Case Against Binance

Paradigm filed an amicus brief in the SEC lawsuit against Binance. Paradigm was not an investor in Binance and has no direct financial interest in the outcome of the lawsuit. However, we believe it is critical to stand against government overreach regardless of who the defendant is. Here, the SEC is attempting to leverage the disturbing allegations it levies in its complaint to change the law while circumventing the rulemaking process. The SEC is plainly acting outside the scope of its authority and we oppose this gambit.

September 29, 2023

Electronification, trading, and crypto

An analysis of the historical evolution of financial markets — and why crypto is about more than just making existing processes digital.

September 6, 2023

The Future of Payments Includes Stablecoins

Any legislation on stablecoins should promote openness and competition while recognizing that stablecoins are inherently different from bank deposits and MMFs

July 26, 2023

Joining Paradigm · Government Affairs Lead · Alex Grieve

July 17, 2023

Moneyness In The Digital Age

The recent events surrounding Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) provide a lens for reexamining age-old questions about the relationship between money and credit — and crypto’s important role in the future.

April 26, 2023

SEC’s Path to Registration - Part III

The Current SEC Disclosure Framework Is Unfit for Crypto

The grand bargain of the US securities laws is that any issuer selling securities to the general public must provide the public with a set of disclosures approved by the SEC. These laws are intended to address information asymmetry and ensure that the investing public has the material information necessary to make informed investment decisions. The securities laws are not intended to turn the SEC into a gatekeeper or “merit regulator” that itself decides which projects are investable and which are not. Congress meant for discretion to remain solidly in the hands of individual investors.

April 20, 2023

March 2023 Public Opinion Poll

While Washington sits on the sidelines, Americans want regulatory clarity on crypto. That's the bottom line on a poll we recently conducted to better understand how Americans view crypto.

March 24, 2023

SEC’s Path to Registration - Part II

Lessons from Crypto Projects’ Failed Attempts to Register with the SEC

The grand bargain of the US securities laws is that any issuer selling securities to the general public must provide the public with a set of disclosures approved by the SEC. These laws are intended to address information asymmetry and ensure that the investing public has the material information necessary to make informed investment decisions. The securities laws are not intended to turn the SEC into a gatekeeper or “merit regulator” that itself decides which projects are investable and which are not.  Congress meant for discretion to remain solidly in the hands of individual investors.

March 23, 2023

SEC’s Path to Registration - Part I

Due to SEC Inaction, Registration is Not a Viable Path for Crypto Projects

SEC Chair Gary Gensler would like the American public to believe that it is just as simple and easy for crypto founders to register tokens or crypto products with the SEC. It’s not.

March 23, 2023

You Can't Regulate What You Can't Understand: The Case for Modernizing Government Ethics Rules

The tl;dr is that ethics rules effectively bar most government employees from owning crypto.

February 21, 2023

Using On-Chain Data for Policy Research, Part 3: Mint/Burn Dashboard

Today, fiat-backed stablecoins are an important part of the crypto ecosystem and looking closely at on-chain data can surface issues that lead to better-designed stablecoins. Rather than write an academic-style report, our approach here is to make available a clean data set and deliver an interactive data dashboard to encourage more individual use and exploration of on-chain activity.

February 16, 2023

Using On-Chain Data for Policy Research, Part 2: Stablecoin Risk Rundown

The first post in this series provided an overview of one of the many ways to access on-chain data for use in policy research. This piece builds on that work by introducing a set of policy issues relevant to stablecoins, including what can and can't be probed using on-chain data. It also covers a few practical steps related to data cleaning. It is intended for policy professionals operating at the academic-practitioner frontier.

January 19, 2023

Introducing Paradigm’s Policy Council

We are excited to announce the first iteration of the Paradigm Policy Council, an impressive group of bipartisan talent with a diverse set of experiences. This team will advise Paradigm’s leadership team and help us tell the story of Web3 in Washington and around the world.

November 7, 2022

Using On-Chain Data for Policy Research: Part 1

Crypto policy work rarely involves real, granular data. This is a missed opportunity, given how many tools used by the modern economics and finance community should directly translate to crypto data analysis. Crypto offers granular data, available to anyone, by design.

October 13, 2022

Ethereum's New ‘Staking’ Model Does Not Make ETH A Security.

Ethereum’s adoption of a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism does not make ETH (or even staked ETH) an investment contract, and such a finding would result in a nonsensical application of securities laws.

October 5, 2022

What is the Merge?

The Ethereum network will soon undergo an update known as the Merge. The primary goal of the Merge is to transition Ethereum's consensus mechanism from a model known as proof-of-work (PoW) to one called proof-of-stake (PoS).

September 15, 2022

Base Layer Neutrality

With this analysis, we hope to ease uncertainty plaguing industry actors and provide clarity around the scope of sanctions compliance obligations.

September 8, 2022

DAO Strategy and Legal Wrappers

One of the important features of Web3 is the way in which blockchain-based technology enables individuals to organize themselves in novel arrangements to make problem solving potentially more creative, efficient and communitarian.

June 8, 2022

Joining Paradigm · Katie Biber

June 6, 2022

Joining Paradigm · Justin Slaughter

February 14, 2022