Compliance for Builders

Shipping a crypto product without a compliance strategy is a bet that regulators look elsewhere. Serious teams treat legal structure, user geography, and token economics as design constraints from day one — not problems to fix after traction.

Entity choice matters: LLC, foundation, or DAO wrapper each carries different liability and tax treatment. Admin keys, upgradeability, and treasury multisigs are questions regulators and investors ask. Transparency in documentation builds trust with partners who must answer to their own compliance officers.

Budget for ongoing legal and compliance cost like infrastructure — not a one-off whitepaper review. Policies should cover sanctions screening, marketing claims, employee token holdings, and incident response. This chapter frames the workflow; your counsel fills in jurisdiction-specific detail.