Over the last few years interest in cryptoassets, or more broadly digital assets, has skyrocketed. This has raised many critical legal and regulatory issues related to the emerging cryptoeconomy and its regulation and how that impacts the global growth of “Web3.” This course explores the business and regulatory issues associated with the growth of cryptoassets. We begin with a discussion of what cryptoassets or digital assets are and how they rely on blockchain technology. We will discuss some of the most common types of cryptoassets (e.g., cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, utility tokens, and those that operate by “smart contracts”) and how interest in using them, and in trading them, has grown geometrically over the last few years. We then turn to a series of regulatory issues surrounding the rise of the cryptoeconomy. This will include laws related to trading digital assets, policing their effects on customers and investors (e.g., fraud), money laundering and banking concerns, potential national security considerations, data privacy and cybersecurity, and a host of other issues. We discuss how the cryptoeconomy is different in important ways for regulatory purposes and address some of the emerging global political economy questions that are on the near horizon. There are no pre-requisites for this seminar and the grade for the seminar is based on actively participating in class sessions and submitting five (5) reaction papers to the readings. There are thirteen sessions and students can pick the 5 sessions for which they wish to write reactions papers. Each paper should be five (5) double spaced pages long. With the permission of the instructor students may write a paper in lieu of the reaction memos.
For details on class times, days of the week, instructors, and grading and exam details, please view the Michigan Law Class Schedule.