El Salvador has recently become the first country to adopt Bitcoin as Legal Tender. This is a first step in a long way towards crypto currencies gaining legal acceptance around the world. Bitcoin is now being accepted at El Salvador Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Pizza Hut and some other establishments. While some people may claim this is a massive game changer, and it may be considered a watershed moment, the average person in El Salvador may not have easy access to Bitcoin so its possible it may take months or even years before the average person in El Salvador actually uses crypto to make a fa ..read more

The Tokyo Olympics will be the first Olympics where Olympians who want to attend college or who are attending college won’t have to choose between accepting a college scholarship and earning money from sponsors based on their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and not cashing in on their new found fame. This is a huge turning point in the history of college athletics which I believe will lead to increased revenues for college athletic departments and student-athletes. The Washington Post has a great article discussing how Olympians in the past have had to choose between accepting a college schola ..read more

Who has the right to sell an NFT of the artwork for an album? This is a question that may soon be decided due to a lawsuit over who has the right to sell an NFT based upon Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt album. There appears to be some controversy over whether the NFT is just for the original artwork of the album or whether the NFT also includes an ownership percentage in Roc-A-Fella records. Damon Dash owns 1/3rd of Roc-A-Fella records and Dash may be trying to sell his 1/3rd ownership rights in the company along with his 1/3rd rights to the album’s NFT. Unfortunately, the alleged facts in the lawsu ..read more

The Supreme Court in NCAA v. Alston, et al, has just ruled unanimously in an antitrust case that challenged the NCAA’s ability to have uniform limits on benefits for student-athletes that are related to education. In other words, the ruling may open the floodgates for student-athletes to fully monetize their social media and potential crypto assets while still remaining eligible to compete in college sports. This is a major ruling because in the past student athletes have had to give up earning money on social media if they wanted to remain eligible to play college sports. For example, Donald ..read more

Are NFT’s or non fungible tokens just cool artwork or are more akin to security such as a share of stock? This is an interesting question that a court of law has been asked to answer. If an NFT is a security which needs to be registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission it will most likely harm the professional sports NFT market because it will create a costly regulatory hurdle that few NFT creators may want to jump through and it may make them prohibitively expensive to buy. The lawsuit’s basic claim is that the NFT’s issued by the NBA and NBA Players Association via Top Shot a ..read more

An NFT is a non-fungible token. Its a digital file whose identify may be verified on a blockchain. NFTs may represent a one of a kind work of art or a be part of a series. They may also represent physical items such as paintings or virtual items such as video game loot/skins or collectibles. When creating an NFT there may be copyright and trademark issues at play so if you plan to use someone else’s intellectual property be very careful. For example, if you want to create an NFT of a cool Van Halen or Journey album cover you may need to obtain permission from the intellectual property rights h ..read more

According to Reuters, Iran has arrested more than 7,000 crypto farmers for violating the ban against crypto mining. There have been numerous blackouts in the country and the Iranian government has blamed crypto miners heavy usage of electricity for its strained power grid. Iran’s nuclear reactor was recently shut down and its possible that this was in response to the large number of crypto mining that is occurring in the country. Cryptocurrencies are generally created by powerful computers compete working to solve complex mathematical problems. This process requires a large amount of electrici ..read more

China has officially banned its banking sector from providing cryptocurrency related business services. In essence, banks and financial institutions located in China may not offer financial products related to crypto, saving, or trust services in the crypto space. China’s crypto crackdown during this volatile boom in crypto prices may be a negative sign during this cycle that prices are not sustainable. It wouldn’t surprise me if this leads to a major correction in the future. Even though the U.S. is still the largest economy in the world, China is second and may soon overtake the U.S. With th ..read more

Several clients have recently asked me about the likelihood of western governments introducing stablecoins which are a digital currency that is linked to an underlying asset such as a national currency or something with physical value such as gold. Stablecoins are designed to maintain a steady price and have become a major source of liquidity in cryptocurrency markets. The Wall Street Journal has stated that stablecoins may help create liquidity in the market for Crypto. There is still too much fraud involved with crypto for it to become more widely adopted; however I am betting it will eventu ..read more

NBC 4 has done 2 news stories, an article and a television segment on the troubling issues and widening scandal at the Maryland PTA. On May 20, 2020, the National PTA put Maryland PTA on probation for a variety of troubling issues. Instead of working to correct the issues, it appears that the Maryland PTA is spending parent dues to engage a lawyer to fight the sanctions. The probation document is located below for you to interpret. Maryland-PTA-Out-of-Compliance-LetterDownload ..read more