Company: HODL
Filing Date: 2025-11-13
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0000930413-25-003438
Chunk: 163

Company: VanEck Bitcoin ETF
Filing Date: 2025-11-13
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part I, Item 4
Chunk 163
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 digital asset business activities constitute money
transmission requiring licensure.

The inconsistency in applying money transmitting licensure requirements
to certain businesses may make it more difficult for these businesses to provide services, which may affect consumer adoption of
bitcoin and its price. In an attempt to address these issues, the Uniform Law Commission passed a model law in July 2017, the Uniform
Regulation of Virtual Currency Businesses Act, which has many similarities to the BitLicense and features a multistate reciprocity
licensure feature, wherein a business licensed in one state could apply for accelerated licensure procedures in other states. It
is still unclear, however, how many states, if any, will adopt some or all of the model legislation.

Law enforcement agencies have often relied on the transparency of blockchains
to facilitate investigations. However, certain privacy-enhancing features have been, or are expected to be, introduced to a number
of digital asset networks. If the Bitcoin network were to adopt any of these privacy-enhancing features, these features may provide
law enforcement agencies with less visibility into transaction-level data. Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement
agency, released a report in October 2017 noting the increased use of privacy-enhancing digital assets like Zcash and Monero in
criminal activity on the internet. In May 2022, OFAC banned all U.S. persons from using Blender.io, a digital asset mixing application
that operates on the Bitcoin Blockchain to obfuscate the origin, destination and counterparties of blockchain transactions, by
adding certain digital asset wallet addresses associated with Blender.io to its Specially Designated Nationals list. Blender.io
receives a variety of transactions and mixes them together before transmitting them to their ultimate destinations. On March 23,
2022, Lazarus Group, a state-sponsored cyber hacking group associated with North Korea, carried out a major virtual currency heist
from a blockchain project linked to the online game Axie Infinity; Blender.io was used in processing some of the illicit proceeds.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s press release announcing the sanctions on Blender.io observed that, while most virtual currency
activity is licit, virtual currency can be used for illicit activity, including sanctions evasion, through mixers, peer-to-peer
exchangers, darknet markets, and exchanges. This includes the facilitation of heists, ransomware schemes, and other cybercrimes.
On October 19, 2023, FinCEN published proposed rulemaking to apply the authorities in Section