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Digital Asset Law: The Evolving Legal and Regulatory Framework, Second Edition

Authors
  • V. Gerard Comizio
Series / Aspen Casebook Series
Description
Table of contents
Preface

Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook on Casebook Connect, including academic lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities. Access also includes an outline tool and other helpful resources. Connected eBooks provide what you need most to be successful in your law school classes.

Digital Asset Law: The Evolving Legal and Regulatory Framework by V. Gerard Comizio is a cutting edge and expanded second edition of his groundbreaking 2022 textbook, Virtual Currency Law: The Emerging Regulatory Framework. This up-to-date and comprehensive text explores and analyzes both the exploding market structure and the legal and regulatory developments impacting digital assets today under a wide range of federal and state laws, including securities, banking, commodities, money transmission, payments systems, commercial, anti-money laundering, fintech, cyber and data security, tax, and constitutional and international laws. 

New to the Second Edition: 

  • New and expanded sections related to the rapidly evolving and changing legal, regulatory, and market structure developments in federal and state laws governing digital assets; federal stock offerings; mutual funds and broker dealers; commodities and derivatives; banking; and the unique NY itBit trading exchange license and ensuing litigation between federal and state banking regulators over the authority to issue such licenses. 
  • A new chapter exploring and analyzing the “Crypto Winter” market crisis of 2022, including the FTX scandal and other crypto train exchange failures; the legal, regulatory, and policy issues raised by the crisis; and the impact on the future of digital asset regulation raised by the broad range of recent digital asset initiatives by the Trump administration, including Executive Order 14178, the recent 160-page Presidential Working Group’s recommendations regarding digital asset market structure and regulation. 
  • Specific coverage of changing laws and regulations, including the 2025 GENIUS Act, creating a new market and regulatory structure governing the market for stablecoins; the Securities and Exchange Commission’s changing policy on the permissibility of Bitcoin and other crypto publicly traded funds and the SEC’s “Crypto 2.0” Task Force; and changing regulation and policies of federal banking agencies designed to permit banking organizations to now engage in a wide range of digital asset activities. 

Professors and students will benefit from: 

  • Each chapter begins with a basic introduction to the fundamental legal and regulatory legal framework of the respective areas of law being applied to digital assets. As such, 
    • for students, it is not only a useful primer on digital asset regulation, but also provides a basic understanding of major areas of corporate and financial institutions laws. 
    • for professors who are not experts in all areas of law and regulation covered in the book, these chapter introductions will help provide a better understanding of the materials. 
  • The chapters, organized by the area of law and regulation analyzed, also provide useful comparative analysis of similar concepts under other laws and regulations discussed in other chapters. 
  • Expanded treatment and updated coverage and analysis of digital asset law, regulation, and policy.
  • The second edition now facilitates its use to teach either a two or three credit elective course or seminar, and also may be used as a treatise or research source on digital asset law and regulation issues.
  • Coverage of the wide range of 2025 initiatives by the Trump administration as they impact changing law, regulation, and policy.
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Table of contents

Summary of Contents


Contents 
Preface 
Acknowledgments 


Chapter 1. Introduction to Digital Asset Law 
Chapter 2. Digital Assets and the Money Transmission and Anti-Money
Laundering Laws 
Chapter 3. Securities Regulation and Digital Assets: Tokens and Initial
Coin Offerings 
Chapter 4. Broker-Dealer Rules, Trading Platforms,
and Anti-Manipulation Rules Under the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934 
Chapter 5. Digital Assets and Federal Commodities Regulation:
The CFTC and the Commodity Exchange Act 
Chapter 6. Digital Assets and the Uniform Commercial Code 
Chapter 7. Digital Asset Trading and Bank “Fintech” Charters 
Chapter 8. Digital Asset Funds as Regulated Investment Companies
Under the 1940 Act 
Chapter 9. Digital Assets: Constitutional Issues 
Chapter 10. Digital Assets: International Regulation 
Chapter 11. Digital Assets and Federal Tax Law 
Chapter 12. Crypto Winter and Beyond: Evolving Digital Asset
Market and Regulation 


Table of Cases and Regulatory Orders and Issuances 
Index 
 

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About the authors
V. Gerard Comizio
Professor
American University, Washington College of Law

V. Gerard (Jerry) Comizio is the associate director of the Business Law Program at AUWCL. He teaches courses on U.S. and international banking law, virtual currency law, regulation of financial institutions, and U.S. business associations. Professor Comizio is a leading authority on financial services regulatory, transactional, and compliance matters.

Professor Comizio has written extensively about current issues in financial services regulation. He is the author of International Banking Law (West Academic 2016), one of the first major casebooks on international banking law issues. He is also the contributing author to three books on financial services issues: Winning Legal Strategies for Banking Law, Aspatore Books; The Bank Investor Relations Handbook, America’s Community Bankers; and The Bank Founder’s Guidebook, SNL Securities.

He focuses on the emerging legal, regulatory, and policy framework governing virtual currency activities and other transformative financial technologies. He currently teaches one of the first virtual currency law courses in the country, which explores virtual currency’s emerging legal and regulatory framework under corporate, securities, commodities, banking, money transmission, anti-money laundering, financial technology, tax, and commercial laws. He is the author of Virtual Currencies: Growing Regulatory Framework and Challenges in the Emerging Fintech Ecosystem (Aspen Publishing 2022), one of the first legal textbooks on crypto law.

He has been featured in the American Banker’s annual “Washington Insider’s Survey of the 25 Most Influential People Involved in Financial Services Regulatory Issues,” and has regularly appeared on television, internet media, and radio discussing current financial services regulatory issues, including NPR, Fox News, Bloomberg TV, and CBS radio. He has been widely quoted on financial services issues in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and other major newspapers and publications.

Professor Comizio joined AUWCL after many years of private practice at two major law firms where he chaired their global financial services practices. Prior to private practice, he was for many years the deputy general counsel of the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Thrift Supervision (currently the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency), and before that, senior counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Division of Corporation Finance.

He has served as a member of the Governing Committee of the U.S. Conference on Consumer Finance Law and the Board of Advisors of the University of North Carolina Law School Center for Banking and Finance. He is also the former chairman of the Trusts and Investments Subcommittee of the American Bar Association’s Banking Law Committee and the Advisory Board of the George Washington Law School Center for Law Economics and Finance.

Professor Comizio received his master’s degree in global policy from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in 2020, his LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1983, his JD from the Pace University School of Law in 1980 where he was case and comments editor of the law review, and his BA from Fordham University in 1977.

Product Information
Edition
Second Edition
Publication date
2026-02-24
Copyright Year
2026
Pages
458
LLPOD
9798894105291
eBook
9798894105277
Print + eBook
9798894105260
Subject
Securities Regulation
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