UNCHAINED: Friend.tech | The Legal and Tax Ins and Outs of This Year’s Hottest Crypto App
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 6 September 2023
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Friend.tech, a decentralized social media platform in which you can buy and sell “keys” in your friends on X (formerly known as Twitter) whose value can go up and down, has become a viral sensation, racking up as many as 100,000 users since launching on August 10.
Should keys be considered securities and thus regulated by the SEC? How should gains and losses be taxed? And how private should users assume their communications and transactions on the platform are? Securities and banking law professor at George Mason Law School JW Verret, and tax partner and co-head of the Digital Assets and Blockchain Practice at Fried, Frank Jason Schwartz, share their thoughts.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.
Show Highlights |
- How Friend.tech works and how the price of keys is determined
- How Friend.tech is different from many other past attempts at creating a decentralized social media platform
- Whether the keys offered by Friend.tech could be deemed securities by the SEC
- What wrapped Friend.tech tokens are and whether these could be considered securities
- Why the traditional approach to crypto taxation is bad for most Friend.tech taxpayers
- What the tax implications of Friend.tech airdrops are
- What Friend.tech users should assume about their privacy on the app
- What the future holds for Friend.tech
GUESTS |
J.W. Verret, Associate Professor of Law at George Mason Law School
Previous appearance on Unchained: Coinbase's Legal Action Against the SEC: How It Will Likely Unfold
Jason Schwartz, tax partner and co-head of the Digital Assets and Blockchain Practice at Fried, Frank
Friend.Tech Shows How Complicated Taxing Crypto Transactions Can Be by Jason Schwartz
Links |
Unchained:
Friend.tech Threatens to Penalize Users That Move to Copies or Forks
Friend.tech Clarifies That Database of 100,000 Users Was Not Leaked
What Is SocialFi? A Beginner’s Guide
The ‘Howey Test’ and the Debate Over Crypto's Legal Status - Crypto Security vs Commodity
CoinDesk:
Friend.tech Attracted NBA Influencers. So Why Does Everyone Think Crypto’s Latest Trend Will Die?
Decrypt:
Friend.tech Renames Its Token—But Is It Even Legal?
Unchained Podcast is Produced by Laura Shin Media, LLC. Distributed by CoinDesk. Senior Producer is Michele Musso and Executive Producer is Jared Schwartz.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things Crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto eight years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes, was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the September 5th, 2020, episode of Unchained. |
| 0:24.2 | Toku makes implementing global token compensation and incentive awards simple. |
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| 0:56.6 | crypto.com app. New users can enjoy zero credit card fees on crypto purchases in the first |
| 1:02.3 | seven days. Download the crypto.com app and get $25 with the code Laura. Link in the description. |
| 1:09.9 | Today's topic is legal and tax issues around Friend Tech. |
| 1:13.8 | Here to discuss our J.W. Verrett, Associate Professor of Law at George Basin Law School, and Jason |
| 1:19.4 | Schwartz, tax partner and co-head of the digital assets and blockchain practice at Freed Frank. |
| 1:25.1 | Welcome, J.W. and Jason. Good to be here. Good to be here, Laura. Let's start by having each |
| 1:29.8 | of you give your backgrounds so the audience understands how your experience relates to the topic at hand. |
| 1:36.0 | J.W., let's start with you. Okay. I teach corporate securities and banking law at George Mason Law School. |
| 1:43.0 | I also teach accounting, forensic accounting |
| 1:44.8 | there. I practice as a securities lawyer. I defend clients from the SEC and I do internal |
| 1:50.5 | investigations of accounting matters. And I also practice as a forensic accountant where I support |
| 1:56.3 | litigation matters and in working on U.S. versus Sterlingoff right now, which is taking a |
| 2:01.3 | lot of time. Great to be here. Jason. And I'm Jason Schwartz. As you mentioned, tax partner |
| 2:07.5 | and code of digital assets at Freed Frank. I have been a financial products and funds lawyer for |
... |
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