Founders

1/ As U.S. regulators continue their war on crypto, many founders are thinking about geofencing as a compliance strategy.

It can work, but only if it's done right.

That’s why @dbarabander and I wrote this Practical Guide to Geofencing:

GC and Investment Partner @variant | ex software engineer/@ycombinator founder, attorney Cravath | casts are not legal advice | I am not your lawyer

1/ As U.S. regulators continue their war on crypto, many founders are thinking about geofencing as a compliance strategy.

It can work, but only if it's done right.

That’s why @dbarabander and I wrote this Practical Guide to Geofencing:
https://blog.variant.fund/newsletter-legal-regulatory-affairs

2/ Our guide explains what you (and your counsel) need to know about geofencing.

Geofencing means stopping people in a certain "geography" from accessing a product by creating a virtual “fence” around it.

We start by explaining when it's useful as a compliance strategy.

4/ Geofencing is useful when neither of those options work.

It’s a pretty extreme solution to the problem of regulatory uncertainty — completely abandoning the US market — but sometimes there’s just no other way.

We then do a deep dive into the case law on geofencing.

5/ The guide ends with a summary of best practices for companies and their counsel to consider in establishing an effective U.S. geofence.

It also gives suggestions for how to implement each one.

6/ Special thanks to @ohaiom, a true expert on geofencing, for his review and feedback.

We’ve been getting many questions from founders at @variantfund about geofencing.

We hope this guide helps them and their counsel decide how it fits into their compliance strategy ✌️

[end]

3/ Geofencing is essentially a “when all else fails” fallback option when a company can’t:

- satisfy applicable compliance obligations, like registration, disclosures, KYC, etc.; or

- design the product in such a way that no compliance obligations apply in the first place.