Digital Assets and Cryptocurrency: Regulation and Enforcement of Exchanges, Crypto Lending, DeFi, NFTs and More

Kayvan Sadeghi represents clients at the forefront of technology, finance, and media. As lead of the firm’s Blockchain practice, he helps clients navigate uncharted legal waters and resolve litigation and enforcement matters that threaten their way of doing business.

Kayvan serves as lead counsel for defendants and sophisticated plaintiffs in complex commercial and securities litigation nationwide, often involving nine or 10-figure damages. He also regularly defends clients in high-stakes investigations before the US Department of Justice, the SEC, state attorneys general, and other regulators.

Companies, their founders, and corporate boards also rely on Kayvan to assess and manage legal risks and address corporate governance matters. Focused on the blockchain industry since late 2016, Kayvan has advised on projects worldwide across the blockchain ecosystem.

His clients include leading base layer protocols and their founders, CeFi and DeFi platforms, data oracles, crypto hedge funds and investors, NFT gaming projects, and others. He is especially sought after for creative problem-solving based on his sophisticated understanding of technologies and broad perspective on what other industry participants are doing.

Kristen Pauley is an Assistant Director in the SEC's Division of Enforcement and a member of the Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit

Jerry Lin specializes in litigation and regulatory investigations related to market microstructure, securities, and valuation, with a focus on issues involving sophisticated, large-scale data analytics. Mr. Lin supports clients and experts through all phases of the litigation process, including discovery, deposition, and trial. A CFA charterholder, Mr. Lin has more than a decade of consulting experience.

Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos is the General Counsel of StarkWare. Prior to joining StarkWare, Katherine was Chief Legal Officer of Cboe Digital, a U.S. regulated exchange and clearinghouse for spot crypto and crypto derivatives markets, and General Counsel of Maple Finance, a capital-efficient corporate debt marketplace which facilitates crypto institutional borrowing via liquidity pools funded by the DeFi ecosystem. Before going in-house, Katherine was a partner in the Special Matters and Government Investigations practice at King & Spalding in New York and Chicago, where she co-chaired the firm’s Financial Services Industry of Focus and the FinTech, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency working group. In private practice, Katherine represented corporations and individuals under investigation by a large number of regulators, including the DOJ, SEC, CFTC, NFA, OFAC, FINRA, state AGs, the NY DFS, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the OCC, and the Fed. Katherine has extensive experience with digital assets and is a frequent writer and speaker on DeFi, cryptocurrency regulatory developments and credit markets, anti-money laundering, and blockchain-related compliance. Katherine’s comments have been featured in publications such as the Financial Times, the American Banker, Coindesk, Reuters, and many others. Katherine has been recognized as “40 Under 40” by both Global Investigations Review and Benchmark Litigation.

Katherine earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California and her J.D. from Notre Dame Law School, where she serves on the Executive Advisory Committee of the board.