Webinar: EtherDelta And The Regulation Of Decentralized Systems, With Andrew Bull, ESQ.

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This week, I was joined on a livestream by Andrew Bull, ESQ., to discuss the SEC settlement with the founder of EtherDelta. Andrew is the CEO and Founder of Bull Blockchain Law, Philadelphia’s first crypto centric law firm. We attacked this question from both a technical and regulatory perspective, and I learned a lot.

 
 

Here were my top take-aways from the discussion:

  1. The SEC exists for consumer protection and views each case from the perspective of the end user, not the developer or entrepreneur.

  2. How you describe and promote something you create— whether it’s a token, an exchange, or something similar— will have a big impact on how it’s classified and regulated by the SEC.

  3. A developer who created the interface for interacting with a decentralized protocol, even if they didn’t create or own the protocol itself, can still be culpable if they promote that interface to consumers. For example, someone that created and hosted a website for interacting with the EtherDelta smart contracts might still be charged with running an unregistered exchange.

  4. The SEC and other regulatory bodies make themselves available! If you’re building something and there’s regulatory uncertainty, you can get in contact with them.

  5. While code is classified as speech, there are limits even to our First Amendment rights, and these have not yet been tested in the judiciary with regards to decentralized systems. A developer shouldn’t assume that they’re not culpable for code they write, publish, and promote just because they didn’t deploy it or host it themselves.

The conversation is packed with other insights— I highly recommend giving it a full listen. For more from Andrew, follow him on Twitter @andrewbull1988.

Do We Need A Blockchain To Be Decentralized? A Conversation With Alex Hillman.

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Alex Hillman is the co-founder of IndyHall-- one of the earliest, longest running, and most respected coworking communities in the world. He's also an entrepreneur, developer, speaker, prolific writer, podcast host, and all around expert in building community. Despite having his reservations around blockchain and cryptocurrencies, Alex is a self-described fan of decentralization.

Which begs the question: do we need a blockchain to be decentralized? What does decentralization really mean anyway- and why is it important? In this webinar, Alex and I discussed exactly these questions. This was a great conversation-- Alex brought up some key questions and I enjoyed our discourse on these issues.

For more from Alex, follow him on Twitter @alexhillman and visit dangerouslyawesome.com.

Introducing An Experienced Developer To Ethereum Smart Contract Coding In Solidity

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I had the pleasure of introducing my friend and fellow software engineer John Feras to smart contract development on the Ethereum network using Solidity. John is a senior engineer at Comcast with decades of experience; he was writing compilers when JavaScript was a twinkle in Brendan Eich's eyes! John is curious about blockchain tech, but before this session had no experience with smart contract coding.

This session should be helpful introduction for developer's of all experience levels. Thanks to John for agreeing to let me post the recording!