The state legislature of the state of has reportedly passed two new house bills that aim to foster a regulatory environment conducive to and innovation. The developments were reported by the president of the Wyoming Blockchain Coalition, Caitlin Long, in two tweets posted and .
To press time, only the status of one of the bills — — has been updated on Wyoming’s state legislature page, showing it passed 8-1 and has since been placed on general file. The official status of the second bill — — has yet to be , with the last update on Jan. 8. Long’s today, Jan. 11, reports that Bill 57 passed unanimously.
Entitled “Wyoming Utility Token Act-property amendments,” is significant in establishing a new asset class, defining “open blockchain tokens with specified consumptive characteristics [as] intangible personal property.” The definition notably means that said tokens do not require an exemption from federal securities laws. The bill clarifies that:
“The open blockchain tokens governed by this act do not constitute securities because a person who is sold a consumptive open blockchain token cannot receive a cash payment or share of profits from a developer or business, but will instead receive a fixed amount of consumable services, content or property.”
is entitled “Financial technology sandbox,” and pertains to the creation of a fintech regulatory “sandbox” — a supervised and flexible testing environment that provides waivers for certain statutes and rules that would otherwise hamper innovation. Its establishment reportedly aims to foster a welcoming business environment for the developers of new financial products and services, and thereby attract fintech talent to the state.
As previously reported, in early 2018 both the and passed House Bill 70, which relaxed securities regulations and money transmission laws for certain tokens offered via an in the state.
A separate house bill regarding the exemption of virtual currencies from the Wyoming Money Transmitter Act was by the Wyoming state legislature last March, as well as a house bill virtual currencies from state property taxation in February. A slew of pro-crypto and senate and house bills have already been into Wyoming law.
Caitlin Long has previously on the of at both a federal and state level. She argues that the definition of utility tokens as a new asset class is significant in bringing them under the purview of state legislators, rather than national agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (), the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission () and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ().
Published at Sat, 12 Jan 2019 00:11:00 +0000
