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Overview
Why You Should Attend
This half-day (4-hour) program gathers forward thinking practitioners and advocates from the blockchain and public policy realms to help legal practitioners better understand the essential properties and functions of blockchain networks, blockchain-based technological innovations, and the types of applications built on blockchains (often collectively referred to as “Web3”), and the expansion of property rights and contractual relationships that Web3 enables in the digital realm.
In the process, we will dispel popular and persistent misconceptions about Web3 arising from sensationalized accounts of the early uses of cryptocurrency to facilitate a plethora of criminal activity, examining the role of federal law enforcement in promoting this narrative and exploring its attitudes towards the essential properties of the blockchain, including pseudonymity, permissionless access, immutability, transparency, decentralization, and censorship-resistance. We will also review law enforcement’s reliance on the prosecution of anti-money laundering laws as a tool to deter, disrupt and ultimately censor transactions for the exchange of prohibited and criminalized consumer goods and services — citing examples from the semi-licit and illicit markets for controlled substances and sex work.
Finally, we will discuss the incredible potential of Web3 to vastly expand the scope of commercial and non-commercial agreements, transform the governance of human interactions and relationships, and revolutionize criminal justice reform and law enforcement. Join us for this fast-paced multidisciplinary exploration of (i) the boundaries of federal law enforcement authority, individual liberty, privacy, bodily autonomy, economic agency, property rights, and the freedom of contract under current U.S. federal and state laws, and (ii) how those boundaries will be expanded and reshaped by the types of interpersonal interactions, commercial transactions, and social organization that Web3 now enables.
What You Will Learn
After completing this program, participants will be able to:
- Possess a non-technical understanding of blockchains (including smart contract platforms), and the essential features of blockchain-enabled technologies and applications (or Web3)—permissionless networks, decentralization, censorship-resistance, transparency, immutability, and pseudonymity
- Comprehend federal law enforcement's use of anti-money laundering (AML) laws to identify and effectively censor unlawful transactions—including those exchanging prohibited services (i.e., consensual prostitution, human trafficking) and contraband consumer goods (i.e., controlled substances) facilitated online using cryptocurrency payments and Dark Web marketplaces
- Understand how cryptocurrency has been used in the past to evade surveillance and financial censorship of illicit transactions, and the challenge it poses to traditional financial services regulated by federal banking authorities, and law-enforcement reliance on AML laws to detect and disrupt illicit transactions
- Learn how federal AML laws restrict access to essential financial services in the legal cannabis and adult content industries, and lead to self-censoring by regulated actors in the federal government’s efforts to prohibit and criminalize certain goods and services
- Understand the long-term adverse political, social and economic ramifications of prohibiting and criminalizing certain goods and services (using examples from the history of US cannabis prohibition), as well as subsequent efforts to repair the harms imposed by now-repudiated cannabis laws through social equity legislation
- Comprehend the potential applications of Web3 innovations like smart contracts and DAOs to deliver reparative justice and economic restitution to individuals and communities harmed by past prohibition and criminalization and propose potential solutions to mitigate the harms of currently illicit transactions, as an intentional public policy choice and a viable technological alternative to prohibition and criminalization
Who Should Attend
This program will be of interest to general and solo practitioners, transactional, corporate and regulatory attorneys, general counsel and in-house lawyers, regulators and their counsel, and other legal professionals working with clients in the cannabis, adult content and/or blockchain industries, as well as legal professionals seeking to grasp the full potential of Web3 technology and the evolution of law and regulation that it enables.
Program Level: Overview
Prerequisites: No computer science or other experience with blockchain is necessary.
Advanced Preparation: None
Intended Audience: This program will be of interest to general and solo practitioners, transactional, corporate and regulatory attorneys, general counsel and in-house lawyers, regulators and their counsel, and other legal professionals working with clients in the cannabis, adult content and/or blockchain industries, as well as legal professionals seeking to grasp the full potential of Web3 technology and the evolution of law and regulation that it enables.