The Legal Issues Behind Bitcoin's Rise in Value and Popularity

If you had bought $1,000 worth of Bitcoins in 2010, you would have $2.4 million dollars today. The anonymous, Internet-based currency has seen an exponential rise in value and popularity since its inception in 2009. This raises legal questions regarding the legitimacy, the legalities, and what lawyers need to know about this new currency. In this edition of Lawyer2Lawyer, hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams invite Bitcoin experts, attorney Lowell D. Ness and journalist Kashmir Hill, to provide some answers and a foretelling of the e-currency's future. Ness is a partner of the nationwide law firm Perkins Coie which has extensive experience in virtual currency. The firm's Virtual Currency Report Blog, which Lowell regularly contributes to, provides a legal outlook on the state of bitcoin and the market. Lowell's practice focuses on high-growth emerging companies and involves venture capital financings, mergers and acquisitions, public offerings, and private placements. Senior Online Editor of Forbes, Hill is a privacy pragmatist with an interest in the intersection of law, technology, social media, and personal information. Former editor of Above the Law, she has been following the Bitcoin story from the start, and will be releasing an e-book documenting Bitcoin's rise later this year. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.