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Correspondence 0001193125-23-280263 from Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) (CIK 0001869699) (ARKB)

Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) (CIK 0001869699)
Date: Nov. 20, 2023 · CIK: 0001869699 · Accession: 0001193125-23-280263

AI Filing Summary & Sentiment

Referenced dates: November 2, 2023

Date
November 20, 2023
Author
Not clearly detected
Form
CORRESP
Company
Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) (CIK 0001869699)

Letter

Re: Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF

VIA EDGAR

November 20, 2023

Division of Corporation Finance

Office of Crypto Assets

Securities and Exchange Commission

100 F Street, N.E.

Washington, DC 20549

Amendment No. 2 to Registration Statement on Form S-1

Filed September 7, 2023

File No. 333- 257474

To Whom it May Concern:

On behalf of Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (“Trust”), submitted herewith via the EDGAR system are the responses to the comments of the staff of the Office of Crypto Assets of the Division of Corporation Finance (the “Staff”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) with respect to Amendment No. 2 to the Trust’s registration statement on Form S-1 filed on October 11, 2023 (“Registration Statement”). This letter is in response to the comments of the Staff of the SEC provided in correspondence dated November 2, 2023.

For your convenience, we have restated your comments below followed by our responses. Capitalized terms used but not defined in this letter have the meaning given to them in the Registration Statement. We will incorporate any changes referenced below into a future amendment to the Registration Statement.

Comment 1: Please revise throughout your prospectus so that it includes updated information regarding bitcoin, the Bitcoin network, the crypto asset market, enacted and pending crypto asset legislation and regulation. By way of example only, we note that you disclose that the Lightning Network does not yet have material adoption as of April 2021, you disclose the trading volume of bitcoin futures that the CFTC regulated as of April 29, 2021, you discuss the “proposed” Taproot upgrade, and you do not include updated disclosure regarding enacted and pending legislation and regulation that may impact the Bitcoin network and the crypto asset market generally such as the March 9, 2022 Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets and the resulting reports. We may have additional comments after reviewing your revised disclosure.

Response: The Trust has incorporated this comment. With respect to recent developments in the crypto market, the following disclosure will be added:

The trading prices of many digital assets, including bitcoin, have experienced extreme volatility in recent periods and may continue to do so. Extreme volatility in the future, including further declines in the trading prices of bitcoin, could have a material adverse effect on the value of the Shares and the Shares could lose all or substantially all of their value.

The trading prices of many digital assets, including bitcoin, have experienced extreme volatility in recent periods and may continue to do so. For instance, there were steep increases in the value of certain digital assets, including bitcoin, over the course of 2021, and multiple market observers asserted that digital assets were experiencing a “bubble.” These increases were followed by steep drawdowns throughout 2022 in digital asset trading prices, including for bitcoin. These episodes of rapid price appreciation followed by steep drawdowns have occurred multiple times throughout bitcoin’s history, including in 2011, 2013-2014, and 2017-2018, before repeating again in 2021-2022. Over the course of 2023, bitcoin prices have continued to exhibit extreme volatility.

Extreme volatility may persist, and the value of the Shares may significantly decline in the future without recovery. The digital asset markets may still be experiencing a bubble or may experience a bubble again in the future. For example, in the first half of 2022, each of Celsius Network, Voyager Digital Ltd., and Three Arrows Capital declared bankruptcy, resulting in a loss of confidence in participants of the digital asset ecosystem and negative publicity surrounding digital assets more broadly. In November 2022, FTX Trading Ltd. (“FTX”), one of the largest digital asset exchanges by volume at the time, halted customer withdrawals amid rumors of the company’s liquidity issues and likely insolvency, which were subsequently corroborated by its CEO. Shortly thereafter, FTX’s CEO resigned, and FTX and many of its affiliates filed for bankruptcy in the United States, while other affiliates have entered insolvency, liquidation, or similar proceedings around the globe, following which the U.S. Department of Justice brought criminal fraud and other charges, and the SEC and CFTC brought civil securities and commodities fraud charges, against certain of FTX’s and its affiliates’ senior executives, including its former CEO, who was found guilty of these criminal charges in November 2023. In addition, several other entities in the digital asset industry filed for bankruptcy following FTX’s bankruptcy filing, such as BlockFi Inc. and Genesis Global Capital, LLC (“Genesis”). In response to these events (collectively, the “2022 Events”), the digital asset markets have experienced extreme price volatility and other entities in the digital asset industry have been, and may continue to be, negatively affected, further undermining confidence in the digital asset markets. These events have also negatively impacted the liquidity of the digital asset markets as certain entities affiliated with FTX engaged in significant trading activity. If the liquidity of the digital asset markets continues to be negatively impacted by these events, digital asset prices, including bitcoin, may continue to experience significant volatility or price declines, and confidence in the digital asset markets may be further undermined. In addition, regulatory and enforcement scrutiny has increased, including from, among others, the U.S. Department of Justice, the SEC, the CFTC, the White House and Congress, as well as state regulators and authorities. These events are continuing to develop, and the full facts are continuing to emerge. It is not possible to predict at this time all of the risks that they may pose to the Trust, its service providers or to the digital asset industry as a whole.

Extreme volatility in the future, including further declines in the trading prices of bitcoin, could have a material adverse effect on the value of the Shares, and the Shares could lose all or substantially all of their value. The Trust is not actively managed and will not take any actions to take advantage, or mitigate the impacts, of volatility in the price of bitcoin.

With respect to Lightning Network, the following disclosure will be added:

Many digital asset networks face significant scaling challenges due to the fact that public blockchains generally face a tradeoff between security and scalability.

As of July 2017, bitcoin could handle, on average, five to seven transactions per second. For several years, participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem debated potential approaches to increasing the average number of transactions per second that the Bitcoin network could handle. As of August 2017, the Bitcoin network was upgraded with a technical feature known as “segregated witness” that, among other things, could potentially approximately double the transactions per second that can be handled on-chain. More importantly, segregated witness also enables so-called second layer solutions, such as the Lightning Network or payment channels, which could potentially allow faster transaction settlement.

An increasing number of wallets and digital asset intermediaries, such as bitcoin spot markets, have begun supporting segregated witness and the Lightning Network, or similar technology. The Lightning Network is an open-source decentralized network that enables instant off-Bitcoin blockchain transfers of the ownership of bitcoin without the need of a trusted third party. The system utilizes bidirectional payment channels that consist of multi-signature addresses. One on-blockchain transaction is needed to open a channel and another on-blockchain transaction can close the channel. Once a channel is open, value can be transferred instantly between counterparties who are engaging in real bitcoin transactions without broadcasting them to the Bitcoin network. New transactions will replace previous transactions, and the counterparties will store everything locally as long as the channel stays open to increase transaction throughput and reduce computational burden on the Bitcoin network.

With respect to the adoption of new laws and regulations, or changes to existing laws and regulations, applicable to bitcoin, the following disclosure will be added:

On February 15, 2022, Representative Warren Davidson introduced the “Keep Your Coins Act,” which is intended “[t]o prohibit Federal agencies from restricting the use of convertible virtual currency by a person to purchase goods or services for the person’s own use, and for other purposes.” That same day, Congressman Josh Gottheimer also announced a discussion draft of the “Stablecoin Innovation and Protection Act,” which is intended to define “qualified stablecoins” to differentiate them from “more volatile cryptocurrencies.”

On March 17, 2022, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed, Mark Warner, and Jon Tester introduced the Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act in an attempt to ensure blacklisted Russian individuals and businesses do not use cryptocurrency to evade economic sanctions.

On March 9, 2022, President Biden signed an Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets (the “Executive Order”), which outlined a unified federal regulatory approach to addressing the risks and benefits of digital assets. The Executive Order articulated various policy objectives related to digital assets, including investor protections, financial and national security risks, and responsible development and use of digital assets. The Executive Order directed federal government departments and agencies to produce various reports, frameworks, analyses, and regulatory and legislative recommendations to the Biden Administration. The policies and objectives of the Executive Order are very broad, and, at this time, it is unclear what impact it may have on the regulation of bitcoin and other digital assets. The consequences of increased federal regulation of digital assets and digital asset activities could have a material adverse effect on the Trust and the Shares.

On March 28, 2022, Representative Stephen Lynch, along with co-sponsors Jesús G. García, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Alma Adams, introduced H.R. 7231, the Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware Act (“ECASH Act”), which would direct the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department (not the Federal Reserve) to develop and issue a digital analogue to the U.S. dollar, or “e-cash,” which is intended to “replicate and preserve the privacy, anonymity-respecting, and minimal transactional data-generating properties of physical currency instruments such as coins and notes to the greatest extent technically and practically possible,” all without requiring a bank account. E-cash would be legal tender, payable to the bearer and functionally identical to physical U.S. coins and notes, “capable of instantaneous, final, direct, peer-to-peer, offline transactions using secured hardware devices that do not involve or require subsequent or final settlement on or via a common or distributed ledger, or any other additional approval or validation by the United States Government or any other third party payments processing intermediary,” including fully anonymous transactions, and “interoperable with all existing financial institutions and payment systems and generally accepted payments standards and network protocols, as well as other public payments programs.”

On April 6, 2022, Senator Pat Toomey released a draft of his Stablecoin Transparency of Reserves and Uniform Safe Transactions Act, or Stablecoin TRUST Act. The draft bill contemplates a “payment stablecoin,” which is convertible directly to fiat currency by the issuer. Only an insured depositary institution, a money transmitting business (authorized by its respective state authority) or a new “national limited payment stablecoin issuer” would be eligible to issue payment stablecoins. Additionally, payment stablecoins would be exempt from the federal securities requirements, including the Securities Act of 1933 (“1933 Act”), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), and the Investment Company Act of 1940 (“1940 Act”).

On June 7, 2022, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis introduced the “Responsible Financial Innovation Act,” which was drafted to “create a complete regulatory framework for digital assets that encourages responsible financial innovation, flexibility, transparency and robust consumer protections while integrating digital assets into existing law.” Importantly, the legislation would assign regulatory authority over digital asset spot markets to the CFTC and codify that digital assets that meet the definition of a commodity, such as bitcoin and ether, would be regulated by the CFTC.

In 2023, Congress continued to consider several stand-alone digital asset bills, including a formal process to determine when digital assets will be treated as either securities to be regulated by the SEC or commodities under the purview of the CFTC, what type of federal/state regulatory regime will exist for payment stablecoins and the how the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) will apply to cryptocurrency providers. The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (“FIT for the 21st Century Act”) advanced through the United States House of Representatives in a vote along bipartisan lines.

The FIT for the 21st Century Act would require the SEC and the CFTC to jointly issue rules or guidance that would outline their process in delisting a digital asset that they deem inconsistent with the Commodity Exchange Act (the “CEA”), federal securities laws and the FIT for the 21st Century Act. The bill, in part, would also provide a certification process for blockchains to be recognized as decentralized, which would allow the SEC to challenge claims made by token issuers about meeting the outlined standards.

Legislative efforts have also focused on setting criteria for stablecoin issuers and what rules will govern redeemability and collateral. The Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act of 2023, as introduced by House Finance Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (the “McHenry bill”), would make it unlawful for any entity other than a permitted payment stablecoin issuer to issue a payment stablecoin. The McHenry bill would establish bank-like regulation and supervision for federal qualified nonbank payment stablecoin issuers. These requirements include capital, liquidity and risk management requirements, application of the BSA and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act’s customer privacy requirements, certain activities limits, and broad supervision and enforcement authority. The McHenry bill would grant state regulators primary supervision, examination and enforcement authority over state stablecoin issuers, leaving the Federal Reserve Board with secondary, backup enforcement authority for “exigent” circumstances. The McHenry bill would also amend the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”), the 1940 Act, the 1933 Act, the Exchange Act and the Securities Investor Protection Act of 1970 to specify that payment stablecoins are not securities for purposes of those federal securities laws.

Several other bills have advanced through Congress to curb crypto as a payment gateway for illicit activity and money laundering. The “Blockchain Regulatory Clarity Act” would provide clarity to the regulatory classification of digital assets, providing market certainty for innovators and clear jurisdictional boundaries for regulators by affirming that blockchain developers and other related service providers that do not custody customer funds are not money transmitters. The “Financial Techn

Show Raw Text
CORRESP
1
filename1.htm

CORRESP

 VIA EDGAR

November 20, 2023

 Division of Corporation Finance

Office of Crypto Assets

 Securities and Exchange Commission

100 F Street, N.E.

 Washington, DC 20549

Re:
 Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF

Amendment No. 2 to Registration Statement on Form S-1

Filed September 7, 2023

File No. 333- 257474

 To Whom it May
Concern:

 On behalf of Ark 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (“Trust”), submitted herewith via the EDGAR system are the responses to the comments of
the staff of the Office of Crypto Assets of the Division of Corporation Finance (the “Staff”) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) with respect to Amendment No. 2 to the Trust’s registration
statement on Form S-1 filed on October 11, 2023 (“Registration Statement”). This letter is in response to the comments of the Staff of the SEC provided in correspondence dated
November 2, 2023.

 For your convenience, we have restated your comments below followed by our responses. Capitalized terms used but not defined in
this letter have the meaning given to them in the Registration Statement. We will incorporate any changes referenced below into a future amendment to the Registration Statement.

Comment 1: Please revise throughout your prospectus so that it includes updated information regarding bitcoin, the Bitcoin network, the crypto asset
market, enacted and pending crypto asset legislation and regulation. By way of example only, we note that you disclose that the Lightning Network does not yet have material adoption as of April 2021, you disclose the trading volume of bitcoin
futures that the CFTC regulated as of April 29, 2021, you discuss the “proposed” Taproot upgrade, and you do not include updated disclosure regarding enacted and pending legislation and regulation that may impact the Bitcoin network
and the crypto asset market generally such as the March 9, 2022 Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets and the resulting reports. We may have additional comments after reviewing your revised disclosure.

Response: The Trust has incorporated this comment. With respect to recent developments in the crypto market, the following disclosure will be added:

 The trading prices of many digital assets, including bitcoin, have experienced extreme volatility in recent periods and may
continue to do so. Extreme volatility in the future, including further declines in the trading prices of bitcoin, could have a material adverse effect on the value of the Shares and the Shares could lose all or substantially all of their value.

 The trading prices of many digital assets, including bitcoin, have experienced extreme
volatility in recent periods and may continue to do so. For instance, there were steep increases in the value of certain digital assets, including bitcoin, over the course of 2021, and multiple market observers asserted that digital assets were
experiencing a “bubble.” These increases were followed by steep drawdowns throughout 2022 in digital asset trading prices, including for bitcoin. These episodes of rapid price appreciation followed by steep drawdowns have occurred multiple
times throughout bitcoin’s history, including in 2011, 2013-2014, and 2017-2018, before repeating again in 2021-2022. Over the course of 2023, bitcoin prices have continued to exhibit extreme volatility.

Extreme volatility may persist, and the value of the Shares may significantly decline in the future without recovery. The digital asset
markets may still be experiencing a bubble or may experience a bubble again in the future. For example, in the first half of 2022, each of Celsius Network, Voyager Digital Ltd., and Three Arrows Capital declared bankruptcy, resulting in a loss of
confidence in participants of the digital asset ecosystem and negative publicity surrounding digital assets more broadly. In November 2022, FTX Trading Ltd. (“FTX”), one of the largest digital asset exchanges by volume at the time, halted
customer withdrawals amid rumors of the company’s liquidity issues and likely insolvency, which were subsequently corroborated by its CEO. Shortly thereafter, FTX’s CEO resigned, and FTX and many of its affiliates filed for bankruptcy in
the United States, while other affiliates have entered insolvency, liquidation, or similar proceedings around the globe, following which the U.S. Department of Justice brought criminal fraud and other charges, and the SEC and CFTC brought civil
securities and commodities fraud charges, against certain of FTX’s and its affiliates’ senior executives, including its former CEO, who was found guilty of these criminal charges in November 2023. In addition, several other entities in the
digital asset industry filed for bankruptcy following FTX’s bankruptcy filing, such as BlockFi Inc. and Genesis Global Capital, LLC (“Genesis”). In response to these events (collectively, the “2022 Events”), the digital
asset markets have experienced extreme price volatility and other entities in the digital asset industry have been, and may continue to be, negatively affected, further undermining confidence in the digital asset markets. These events have also
negatively impacted the liquidity of the digital asset markets as certain entities affiliated with FTX engaged in significant trading activity. If the liquidity of the digital asset markets continues to be negatively impacted by these events,
digital asset prices, including bitcoin, may continue to experience significant volatility or price declines, and confidence in the digital asset markets may be further undermined. In addition, regulatory and enforcement scrutiny has increased,
including from, among others, the U.S. Department of Justice, the SEC, the CFTC, the White House and Congress, as well as state regulators and authorities. These events are continuing to develop, and the full facts are continuing to emerge. It is
not possible to predict at this time all of the risks that they may pose to the Trust, its service providers or to the digital asset industry as a whole.

Extreme volatility in the future, including further declines in the trading prices of bitcoin, could have a material adverse effect on
the value of the Shares, and the Shares could lose all or substantially all of their value. The Trust is not actively managed and will not take any actions to take advantage, or mitigate the impacts, of volatility in the price of bitcoin.

 With respect to Lightning Network, the following disclosure will be added:

Many digital asset networks face significant scaling challenges due to the fact that public blockchains generally face a tradeoff between
security and scalability.

 As of July 2017, bitcoin could handle, on average, five to seven transactions per second. For several
years, participants in the Bitcoin ecosystem debated potential approaches to increasing the average number of transactions per second that the Bitcoin network could handle. As of August 2017, the Bitcoin network was upgraded with a technical feature
known as “segregated witness” that, among other things, could potentially approximately double the transactions per second that can be handled on-chain. More importantly, segregated witness also
enables so-called second layer solutions, such as the Lightning Network or payment channels, which could potentially allow faster transaction settlement.

 An increasing number of wallets and digital asset intermediaries, such as bitcoin spot
markets, have begun supporting segregated witness and the Lightning Network, or similar technology. The Lightning Network is an open-source decentralized network that enables instant off-Bitcoin
blockchain transfers of the ownership of bitcoin without the need of a trusted third party. The system utilizes bidirectional payment channels that consist of multi-signature addresses. One on-blockchain
transaction is needed to open a channel and another on-blockchain transaction can close the channel. Once a channel is open, value can be transferred instantly between counterparties who are engaging in real
bitcoin transactions without broadcasting them to the Bitcoin network. New transactions will replace previous transactions, and the counterparties will store everything locally as long as the channel stays open to increase transaction throughput and
reduce computational burden on the Bitcoin network.

…

 With respect to the adoption of new laws
and regulations, or changes to existing laws and regulations, applicable to bitcoin, the following disclosure will be added:

…

 On
February 15, 2022, Representative Warren Davidson introduced the “Keep Your Coins Act,” which is intended “[t]o prohibit Federal agencies from restricting the use of convertible virtual currency by a person to purchase goods or
services for the person’s own use, and for other purposes.” That same day, Congressman Josh Gottheimer also announced a discussion draft of the “Stablecoin Innovation and Protection Act,” which is intended to define
“qualified stablecoins” to differentiate them from “more volatile cryptocurrencies.”

 On March 17,
2022, Senators Elizabeth Warren, Jack Reed, Mark Warner, and Jon Tester introduced the Digital Asset Sanctions Compliance Enhancement Act in an attempt to ensure blacklisted Russian individuals and businesses do not use cryptocurrency to evade
economic sanctions.

 On March 9, 2022, President Biden signed an Executive Order on Ensuring
Responsible Development of Digital Assets (the “Executive Order”), which outlined a unified federal regulatory approach to addressing the risks and benefits of digital assets.
The Executive Order articulated various policy objectives related to digital assets, including investor protections, financial and national security risks, and responsible development and use of digital assets.
The Executive Order directed federal government departments and agencies to produce various reports, frameworks, analyses, and regulatory and legislative recommendations to the Biden Administration. The policies and objectives of
the Executive Order are very broad, and, at this time, it is unclear what impact it may have on the regulation of bitcoin and other digital assets. The consequences of increased federal regulation of digital assets and digital asset
activities could have a material adverse effect on the Trust and the Shares.

 On March 28, 2022, Representative Stephen Lynch, along with co-sponsors Jesús G. García, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and Alma Adams, introduced H.R. 7231, the Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware Act (“ECASH Act”), which would direct the
Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department (not the Federal Reserve) to develop and issue a digital analogue to the U.S. dollar, or “e-cash,” which is intended to “replicate and preserve the
privacy, anonymity-respecting, and minimal transactional data-generating properties of physical currency instruments such as coins and notes to the greatest extent technically and practically possible,” all without requiring a bank account. E-cash would be legal tender, payable to the bearer and functionally identical to physical U.S. coins and notes, “capable of instantaneous, final, direct, peer-to-peer, offline transactions using secured hardware devices that do not involve or require subsequent or final settlement on or via a common or distributed ledger, or any other additional approval or
validation by the United States Government or any other third party payments processing intermediary,” including fully anonymous transactions, and “interoperable with all existing financial institutions and payment systems and generally
accepted payments standards and network protocols, as well as other public payments programs.”

 On April 6, 2022,
Senator Pat Toomey released a draft of his Stablecoin Transparency of Reserves and Uniform Safe Transactions Act, or Stablecoin TRUST Act. The draft bill contemplates a “payment stablecoin,” which is convertible directly to fiat currency
by the issuer. Only an insured depositary institution, a money transmitting business (authorized by its respective state authority) or a new “national limited payment stablecoin issuer” would be eligible to issue payment stablecoins.
Additionally, payment stablecoins would be exempt from the federal securities requirements, including the Securities Act of 1933 (“1933 Act”), the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”), and the Investment Company Act
of 1940 (“1940 Act”).

 On June 7, 2022, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis introduced the
“Responsible Financial Innovation Act,” which was drafted to “create a complete regulatory framework for digital assets that encourages responsible financial innovation, flexibility, transparency and robust consumer protections while
integrating digital assets into existing law.” Importantly, the legislation would assign regulatory authority over digital asset spot markets to the CFTC and codify that digital assets that meet the definition of a commodity, such as bitcoin
and ether, would be regulated by the CFTC.

 In 2023, Congress continued to consider several stand-alone digital asset bills,
including a formal process to determine when digital assets will be treated as either securities to be regulated by the SEC or commodities under the purview of the CFTC, what type of federal/state regulatory regime will exist for payment stablecoins
and the how the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”) will apply to cryptocurrency providers. The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act (“FIT for the 21st Century Act”) advanced through the United States House of Representatives in a vote along bipartisan lines.

The FIT for the 21st Century Act would require the SEC and the CFTC to jointly issue rules or guidance that would outline their process
in delisting a digital asset that they deem inconsistent with the Commodity Exchange Act (the “CEA”), federal securities laws and the FIT for the 21st Century Act. The bill, in part, would also provide a certification process for
blockchains to be recognized as decentralized, which would allow the SEC to challenge claims made by token issuers about meeting the outlined standards.

 Legislative efforts have also focused on setting criteria for stablecoin issuers and
what rules will govern redeemability and collateral. The Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act of 2023, as introduced by House Finance Committee Chair Patrick McHenry (the “McHenry bill”), would make it unlawful for any entity other than a
permitted payment stablecoin issuer to issue a payment stablecoin. The McHenry bill would establish bank-like regulation and supervision for federal qualified nonbank payment stablecoin issuers. These requirements include capital, liquidity and risk
management requirements, application of the BSA and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act’s customer privacy requirements, certain activities limits, and broad supervision and enforcement authority. The McHenry bill would grant state regulators primary
supervision, examination and enforcement authority over state stablecoin issuers, leaving the Federal Reserve Board with secondary, backup enforcement authority for “exigent” circumstances. The McHenry bill would also amend the Investment
Advisers Act of 1940 (the “Advisers Act”), the 1940 Act, the 1933 Act, the Exchange Act and the Securities Investor Protection Act of 1970 to specify that payment stablecoins are not securities for purposes of those federal securities
laws.

 Several other bills have advanced through Congress to curb crypto as a payment gateway for illicit activity and money
laundering. The “Blockchain Regulatory Clarity Act” would provide clarity to the regulatory classification of digital assets, providing market certainty for innovators and clear jurisdictional boundaries for regulators by affirming that
blockchain developers and other related service providers that do not custody customer funds are not money transmitters. The “Financial Techn