Fighting in the Streets and on the Tweets

It's been a shocking news week in the United States, with standoffs between the police and protests in Minneapolis...

View this email in your browser Law Decoded Fighting in the Streets and on the Tweets May 23–29 It's been a shocking news week in the United States, with standoffs between the police and protests in Minneapolis escalating to riots throughout the country. The spark for the initial protests was a gruesome video circulated on social media showing a now-arrested police officer choking and killing an unarmed black man. Indeed, as has historically been the case with the Black Lives Matter movement, social media has proven critical to the flow of both information and argument — the modern town square. At the same time, President Donald Trump and social media platforms look set to clash in a big way, especially his beloved Twitter. Twitter recently began a more aggressive policy of fact-checking and flagging tweets, including the president's. In one tweet this morning, Trump wrote of quelling riots: "When the looting starts the shooting starts," which Twitter hid behind a warning label for promoting violence. Trump has signed an executive order to end Section 230, the law governing internet free speech. Alongside what seems to be a pending major debate over what constitutes free speech and where the boundary between a publisher and a platform falls, decentralized and blockchain-based social media platforms seem set to move up in collective consciousness, as many people seem uncomfortable with both the authority wielded by the platforms and the president. Kollen Post, Policy Editor Digital dollar moves forward, but will it catch up to the renminbi? This morning, the Digital Dollar Project put out its white paper. The tenets put forward in the white paper are largely a more comprehensive explanation of earlier public statements by the project's founders, fintech gurus from Accenture and former CFTC leaders. Most notable in the white paper is the breakdown of use cases for a digital dollar, as well as proposed pilot programs to test those cases individually. The paper's repeated deference to the existing monetary system is also striking but lines up with regulators who see crypto's primary, non-threatening value as a simple boost to efficiency. In broader terms, the Digital Dollar Project only formally launched at the beginning of this year but has picked up steam rapidly amid the COVID-19 crisis. Just as firms offering e-payments, video chat and remote services have seen their stock prices rise in defiance of widespread economic havoc, the digital dollar has attracted a great deal of attention from policymakers as a means of fixing inefficiencies that aid distribution has made all too apparent. The unspoken boogeyman in the CBDC conversation is China's development of a digital renminbi. While this week the Bank of China stressed that there is no launch date as of yet, China has already been piloting the digital renminbi aggressively. Many view this as a potential tipping point to challenge the international dominance of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Telegram's redemption in Russia In curious ironies of fate, Telegram, the product of Russian tech pioneers and prodigal sons Pavel and Nikolai Durov, has seen some success in rehabilitating its image within the Russian Federation recently. This comes as the firm withdrew its appeal in the fight with the U.S. SEC over its blockchain network earlier this week. The messenger's service during the pandemic, as well as its recent conflict with the U.S. SEC, has started a debate over whether to lift the long-standing ban on the app. Pavel Durov's 10 BTC ($95,000) donation to a Russian COVID-19 charity this week may be part of a reconciliation push. In many ways designed to circumvent Russia's particular climate of censorship, Telegram has long been a thorn in the side of the state. The country has officially banned the messenger app, but it remains popular. To avoid harassment from law enforcement, Pavel Durov left Russia in 2014. Alongside Telegram's role in distributing information on COVID-19 to Russian citizens, it is likely that Durov's recent statements lambasting the overreach of U.S. regulators in the global economy struck a chord with officials in sanctions-stricken Russia. Moscow may decide that the enemy of my enemy — whether that be a pandemic or a global rival — is my friend. I didn't fight the law The SEC announced charges against BitClave, calling its ICO for Consumer Activity Tokens (CAT) an unregistered securities offering. In a lightning turnaround, the same announcement said that the firm and the commission had already reached a settlement, according to which BitClave will return $25 million to investors and pay just under $4 million in additional penalties. The case itself is not groundbreaking, but the speed of the settlement suggests a continuing trend. Firms that held ICOs in the boom days of 2017 and 2018 are on the chopping block. Given the SEC's recent success in the courtroom, fewer crypto firms will be putting up a legal fight. Further reads Writing for Vox, Sara Morrison explains Section 230, the cornerstone law governing internet free speech in the United States that President Trump is trying to overturn. Researchers at Deloitte appraise the prospects for fintech firms in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Atlantic Council runs down data on emerging technologies that stand to grow as a result of the same pandemic, including new methods of data management and trust in supply chains. 1.5 million people follow us on social media Download our official app:

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