The stabbing death of entrepreneur Bob Lee in San Francisco last week put MobileCoin, the cryptocurrency company he led as chief executive officer, into the news. Reporters Matthew Kupfer and Matt Smith of the San Francisco Standard examined one of the central elements of MobileCoin’s business: To keep transactions private and limit their traceability.

Partner Constantine Lizas of our Financial Institutions and Capital Markets team spoke to the news outlet about the potential implications of untraceable transactions. Anonymity, he said, increases the risks of facilitating illegal behavior such as money laundering. The challenge is that attempting to regulate cryptocurrency is “somewhat opposite to the whole idea of cryptocurrency.” Constantine works out of our Washington, D.C. office and is a former lead counsel for Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering matters for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.