As bitcoin’s value soared, Elizabeth White traveled the world converting precarious digital wealth into physical riches.
The New York entrepreneur bought 32 Lamborghinis for clients as far away as Poland, and procured nearly $3 million in gold, she says, including a half-million-dollar transaction inside a Swiss vault.
After a dramatic climb, however, bitcoin is worth less than half of its December peak. As a result, volatility-averse investors are creating new types of cryptocurrency called “stablecoins” that can survive the ups and downs.
But they also raise a host of questions, from regulations to law enforcement.
Stablecoins are pegged to government-issued currencies such as the U.S. dollar, or to stocks and physical assets. Experts say they’re likely to be deemed investment securities regulated strictly by the Securities and Exchange Commission. But it’s not clear there will be a uniform approach.
SEC Chairman Jay Clayton told CNBC this month bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are “not a security” but that “a token, a digital asset, where I give you my money and you go off and start a venture” would be. He declined, however, to offer case-specific analysis of various tokens.
Some experts are urging a more forceful approach. “These tokens are basically the securitization of other assets, and there is nothing new about this in finance,” said professor David Yermack of New York University. “These should definitely be regulated by the SEC. They are similar to money market funds and collateralized debt obligations.”
Other observers note historical context for caution. “The regulatory bodies and compliance professionals are treading this landscape carefully, hopefully applying the lessons from the dotcom era and being open to innovation,” said Pawneet Abramowski, a financial crimes risk management adviser at PARC Solutions.
With pioneering technologies, little is simple. Since 2014, the Internal Revenue Service has considered bitcoin to be “property” rather than currency for tax purposes, a distinction that allows businesspeople such as White to exploit an IRS reporting loophole when clients make purchases of more than $10,000.
Fear of regulators, however, is increasingly prompting risk-averse platforms to require customer IDs to comply with post-9/11 anti-money laundering laws. Clayton warned in December that businesses “should exercise particular caution, including ensuring that their cryptocurrency activities are not undermining their anti-money laundering and know-your-customer obligations” governing banks.
White, the globe-trotting luxury goods specialist, is in the process of unveiling a stablecoin, with a dollar backing each “white standard” issued, giving investors security if other markets are tanking, or a deposit box for goods. She requires customer IDs to comply with federal banking law.
There’s clear risk for novices and criminals. A Los Angeles woman pleaded guilty this month to illegally operating as a bank to convert bitcoin, including drug proceeds, into cash. Federal prosecutors believe she changed up to $9.5 million over three years.
Meanwhile, experimentation is booming. Apis Capital Management launched a digital token in May representing shares of an S&P 500 hedge fund. Among other advantages, investors arguably can avoid annual capital gains taxes. Venezuela’s troubled government recently unveiled the Petro representing oil barrels, though the U.S. promptly applied sanctions. In Colombia, a cannabis farm provides extracts as security for Cannabium.
Large institutional investors are moving in to challenge earlier stablecoins led by tether, which launched in 2014 with a supposed dollar backing each 2.75 billion tether issued.
New arrivals include TrueUSD, with backing from Stanford-StartX. After two months, it passed $12 million in issuance. And emerging algorithmic stablecoins, such as dai, launched in December, claim stability without dollar backing. Intangible Labs said in April it raised $133 million, including from Bain Capital and Google, for its basecoin with an “algorithmic central bank” controlling supply.
Neha Narula, director of the Digital Currency Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, urges caution for would-be investors.
“How can the coin holders have faith that the institution that is maintaining the backing actually has the assets they claim to have?” Narula said. “What happens if that institution’s bank fails, or they lose the backing asset due to a hack or theft?”
White, who claims about $100,000 in stablecoin issuance, said transparency and trust are key, as she works to unfurl a third party to verify bank balances.
“A lot of people think there’s always some con going on in cryptocurrencies because there are so many bad actors,” she said. “People are easily scammed if they don’t really realize what is happening.”
