Crypto Exchanges
By Julie Binoche
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DeFi Defense and Cross-Border Execution. Latham & Watkins built expertise in areas that didn't even exist a few years back.
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Shaping Legislation From the Inside. Lewis Rinaudo Cohen took a different approach. He shaped US crypto legislation through Senate…
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The crypto industry's legal landscape is being shaped right now by a small group of lawyers and firms.
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Sullivan & Cromwell, working out of New York, took the lead in the FTX bankruptcy. The firm managed what became the most complex crypto bankruptcy case anyone had seen.
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Davis Polk & Wardwell carved out their own space through the Block.one EOS securities settlement.
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Latham & Watkins built expertise in areas that didn't even exist a few years back. DeFi, DAOs, NFTs—they defend projects in all three.
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Debevoise & Plimpton got pulled into the Ripple fight against the SEC. Their role centered on defending how secondary-market token sales should be treated under securities law.
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Paul Grewal led Coinbase's legal team to a win against the SEC. That case mattered. A lot. Coinbase is the biggest US exchange, and if the SEC had won, the regulatory pressure on…
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Stuart Alderoty achieved something similar for Ripple. The legal outcome he helped secure changed how people think about XRP and secondary sales more broadly.
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Jake Chervinsky now leads a DeFi-focused policy group. He's actively working to shape US regulatory direction before enforcement actions happen.
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See also: Toobit Drops $1M Prize Pool as Sports-Crypto Trading Campaigns Heat Up
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Fenwick & West positioned themselves as the core legal partner for Silicon Valley crypto builders. They've got a big team skilled in crypto, fintech, and securities law.
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Cooley LLP, based in Palo Alto, got into Bitcoin early. Like, really early. They advised Bitcoin companies back when most law firms thought crypto was a joke or a scam.
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Brown Rudnick's Digital Commerce practice operates out of Boston and Washington, DC. Under Stephen Palley's leadership, they built a robust crypto practice through strategic hires.
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Amanda Tuminelli serves as Executive Director and CLO of the DeFi Education Fund. She's led successful legal challenges against patents that threatened core DeFi protocols.
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