Description

The talk is based on a forthcoming book on Regulating the Crypto-economy, to be published in 2021/22. The book explores the developments of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-based enterprises that focus on decentralised commerce and finance. It argues that there is a need to pay attention to new decentralised enterprises that endeavour to set up new forms of platform-based businesses using blockchain technology.

These are extensions from the platform economy, and the conduct of business may be carried out in regulatory gaps. Although some jurisdictions have responded to these developments, particularly in unregulated fund-raising, a more holistic regulatory agenda is needed if the potential of these enterprises are to be mobilised and made more accessible to the mainstream. Such a regulatory agenda includes enterprise law, governance, fund-raising and regulatory considerations. The talk shares ideas in progress for a radical but holistic regulatory agenda.

About The Speaker

Iris is Professor of Corporate Law and Financial Regulation at UCL, where she has been since 2009. Prior to joining UCL, she was a lecturer at King’s College London (2007‐9) and the University of Leicester (2003‐2007). She has published extensively in banking, capital markets and investment regulation, such as the monograph The Legal Framework for Internal Control in Banks and Financial Institutions (Hart 2015), the jointly authored book Corporate Governance and Investment Management (Edward Elgar 2017) and an authoritative textbook Banking Law and Regulation (Oxford University Press 2019). Iris is also developing research into financial technology and the implications for regulation and policy, and has published a number of articles in leading journals in the EU and US. She is also Research Fellow at the European Corporate Governance Institute and Director of the UCL Centre for Ethics and Law. She has been recently appointed as Senior Scholar to the Legal Research Programme at the European Central Bank.