William Magnuson is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M Law School. This post is based on a recent article by Professor Magnuson, forthcoming in the Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance.
Financial regulators in the United States and abroad have recently trained their sights on innovations at the intersection of finance and technology. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have come under fire, as have other fintech firms. But despite a flurry of activity and increasing attention to the issue, regulators have struggled to apply old law to new facts. In a recent article, Financial Regulation in the Bitcoin Era, forthcoming in the Stanford Journal of Law, Business & Finance, I argue that existing models of financial regulation are ill-equipped to handle the problems that will arise in the Bitcoin era, and I propose a set of guiding principles for a more effective financial regulatory regime.