Our Bitcoin and Digital Asset Infrastructure team works with bitcoin-native companies, bitcoin ‘hodlers’ and institutions looking to add bitcoin, stablecoins and other digital assets to their portfolios, products or transactions. Since 2017, the team has advised bitcoin custody solution providers, investment funds, companies holding bitcoin as a treasury asset, companies using bitcoin as collateral for loans, bitcoin miners and infrastructure developers, and nonprofit developers within the bitcoin ecosystem.

Led by Gavin Fearey and Nick Curley, the team collaborates with Rimon colleagues and other trusted legal partners when client projects involve secured lending, asset recovery, anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance, employment, tax, real estate, bank regulatory, software development and licensing, intellectual property and other transactional and regulatory matters.

Representative examples of projects on which our Bitcoin and Digital Assets Infrastructure team provides counsel are below:

• Bitcoin custody. The team represented a service provider employing multi-institutional custody solution in which three independent institutions each hold separate keys to a vault for a client holding bitcoin. In another example, the team represented a large institutional manager in the review and negotiation of bitcoin custodial arrangements with well-known bitcoin custody solution providers.
• Digital asset recovery. The team represented a digital asset investment adviser and a private fund that fell victim to an airdrop attack and assisted with the ‘unicorn’ recovery of a significant portion of the stolen funds. Our attorneys collaborated with economic fraud and asset recovery lawyers, a blockchain analytics firm, and coordinated with the U.S. government which seized the stolen funds. This collaborative team assisted with an asset forfeiture process in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, followed by a petition for remission filed with the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section (MLARS) of the U.S. Department of Justice, through which the client ultimately received indirect proceeds of the stolen assets.
• Bankruptcy.  Gavin Fearey, and a colleague with a restructuring and insolvency practice, assisted with an FTX debtors claim made against a nonprofit supporting bitcoin developers.
• Bitcoin mining and land use. The team has represented both landowners and bitcoin mining infrastructure developers in conjunction with real estate and energy regulatory colleagues.
• Fund launches. Represented multiple managers in the launch of private investment funds investing in bitcoin, bitcoin native-companies, and other digital assets, employing many different investment strategies, whether in hedge funds, venture capital funds, grantor trusts or credit funds. In one example, the team advised on the launch of a credit fund providing liquidity to a platform offering loans in U.S. dollars backed by bitcoin collateral.
• In-kind subscriptions and redemptions. The team advised several managers with private investment funds implementing monthly or daily in-kind subscriptions and withdrawals, as well as on other bitcoin-related matters, bearing in mind the subscription/redemption process and pricing, NAV calculation, fee calculations, as well as expenses to be borne by manager or fund. In one example, the team updated the documents for a bitcoin private investment trust to a new institutional format while the client prioritized continued grantor tax treatment, as well as its preferred mechanism for NAV per unit to correspond to price of bitcoin (using reduction in units via transfer or sale).
• Regulatory and industry analysis. In one example, the team represented a prominent bitcoin mining client on regulatory planning in Texas. The team also assisted a billion-dollar institutional manager on regulatory planning and industry analysis for bitcoin and ethereum spot ETFs, and served as subject matter counsel in extensive state regulatory work for a large digital asset trading platform.
• Public policy thought leadership. Our Dallas-based attorneys, Gavin and Nick, contribute to public policy and regulatory discussions as active members of the Texas Blockchain Council and the Wallstreet Blockchain Alliance.  In 2018, Gavin co-authored a letter with other prominent bitcoiners, including Caitlin Long, to the director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management about the SEC’s rules on the custody of digital assets (available here).  Additionally, Gavin and Nick provided legislative research and input as members of the Texas Blockchain Council’s financial services committee on Texas Finance Code Section 160 (Digital Asset Service Providers).

Rimon Attorneys With Expertise in Bitcoin and Digital Asset Infrastructure Include:

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  Nick Curley

  Bitcoin and Digital Asset Infrastructure, Commodity Pools, Investment Advisers and Other Asset Managers, Fund Formation, Investment Funds, Regulatory, Compliance & Corporate Governance

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  Gavin Fearey

  Bitcoin and Digital Asset Infrastructure, Commodity Pools, Investment Advisers and Other Asset Managers, Investment Funds, Fund Formation, Regulatory, Compliance & Corporate Governance, Securities and Capital Markets