Law Commons^™

Banking, Payments And Negotiable Instruments, Benjamin Geva

Osgoode Course Casebooks

Course number: 2420.04

Cryptocurrencies: An Introduction For Policy Makers, Brian Conley, Jeffrey Echert, Andrew Fuller, Heather Lewis, Charlotte Lunday

Technology Law and Public Policy Clinic

Cryptocurrencies are open-source, peer-to-peer digital currencies. Two of their most distinctive features include the use of public key cryptography to secure transactions and create additional currency units, as well as the decentralized nature of their digital payment systems. The underlying technical system which all cryptocurrencies are modelled after is that of the original cryptocurrency,

Bitcoin.

Bitcoin was created by “Satoshi Nakamoto” a person or group credited with writing the first paper on the digital currency in 2008. Certain key elements differentiate cryptocurrencies from traditional electronic currency systems such as electronic banking and PayPal, most notably their decentralized control mechanisms. That …

Crytographic Currencies From A Tech-Policy Perspective: Policy Issues And Technical Directions, Emily Mcreynolds, Adam Learner, Will Scott, Franziska Roesner, Tadayoshi Kohno

Tech Policy Lab

We study legal and policy issues surrounding crypto currencies, such as Bitcoin, and how those issues interact with technical design options. With an interdisciplinary team, we consider in depth a variety of issues surrounding law, policy, and crypto currencies—such as the physical location where a crypto currency’s value exists for jurisdictional and other purposes, the regulation of anonymous or pseudonymous currencies, and challenges as virtual currency protocols and laws evolve. We reflect on how different technical directions may interact with the relevant laws and policies, raising key issues for both policy experts and technologists.