Sidley is representing “Owl Explains powered by Ava Labs, Inc.” (Ava Labs), in its response, released publicly today by Ava Labs, to a statement by Commissioner Hester M. Peirce of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that solicited public input on crypto assets and blockchain regulation.
Commissioner Peirce issued the statement on February 21, 2025, as part of the work of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force, which she chairs. The statement invites public input on a wide range of issues concerning crypto assets and blockchain technology, such as security status, public offerings, custody, trading, tokenization, and sandbox initiatives.
Ava Labs is a Brooklyn-based technology company that develops blockchain and related technologies in order to foster greater adoption of this database layer of the internet. Owl Explains is a project created by the legal team at Ava Labs to provide educational resources for regulators, policymakers, and other stakeholders interested in learning about blockchain technology, crypto assets, and Web3. Part of Ava Labs’ mission to keep building clear and fair frameworks for the future of Web3 includes responding to pertinent policy, and their SEC response includes, among other recommendations, the development of smarter, tech-neutral rules that focus on what tokens represent, not how they’re built. The letter can be viewed on the SEC Crypto Task Force website here.
The Sidley team representing Ava Labs is led by partner Lilya Tessler (Securities Enforcement and Regulatory), who leads the firm’s global FinTech and Blockchain group, and includes partner Teresa Wilton Harmon (Global Finance) and Securities Enforcement and Regulatory associates Nicole Chipi, Eugene Gonzalez, and Yifei Wang, who are also members of the blockchain team.
