Company: DEFI
Filing Date: 2025-03-17
Form Type: S-1/A
Source: 0001387131-25-000058
Chunk: 138

Company: Tidal Commodities Trust I
Filing Date: 2025-03-17
Form: S-1/A
Chunk 138
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 availability of existing exchanges and offerings.

FinCEN requires any administrator or exchanger of convertible digital assets to register with FinCEN as a money transmitter and comply with the AML regulations applicable to money transmitters. In 2015, FinCEN assessed a $700,000 fine against a sponsor of a digital asset for violating several requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act by acting as a money services business and selling the digital asset without registering with FinCEN, and by failing to implement and maintain an adequate AML program. In 2017, FinCEN assessed a $110 million fine against BTC-e, a now defunct digital asset exchange, for similar violations. The requirement that exchangers that do business in the U.S. register with FinCEN and comply with AML regulations may increase the cost of buying and selling bitcoin and therefore may adversely affect the price of bitcoin and an investment in the Shares. In a March 2018 letter from FinCEN’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, the assistant secretary indicated that under current law both the developers and the exchanges involved in the sale of tokens in an initial coin offering (“ICO”) may be required to register with FinCEN as money transmitters and comply with the AML regulations applicable to money transmitters.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury (the “U.S. Treasury Department”) has added digital currency addresses, including addresses on the Bitcoin Network to the list of Specially Designated Nationals whose assets are blocked, and with whom U.S. persons are generally prohibited from dealing. Such actions by OFAC, or by similar organizations in other jurisdictions, may introduce uncertainty in the market as to whether bitcoin that has been associated with such addresses in the past can be easily sold. This “tainted” bitcoin may trade at a substantial discount to untainted bitcoin. Reduced fungibility in the Bitcoin markets may reduce the liquidity of bitcoin and therefore adversely affect their price.

Under regulations from the New York State Department of Financial Services (“NYDFS”), businesses involved in digital asset business activity for third parties in or involving New York, excluding merchants and consumers, must apply for a license, commonly known as a BitLicense, from the NYDFS and must comply with AML, cyber security, consumer protection, and financial and reporting requirements, among others. As an alternative to a BitLicense, a firm can apply for a charter to become a limited purpose trust company under New York law