Who the reader is
A practitioner's handbook is only as good as its picture of the person holding it. This book assumes six kinds of reader, each with a different decision in front of them. The founder of a protocol, exchange, custodian or tokenisation platform must decide where to incorporate, where to seek a licence and where to place the treasury. The chief financial officer or general counsel of an existing crypto or fintech firm must decide whether to add a second hub, how to run a group with entities in both places and how to answer the bank's questions. The family office or private investor must decide where to hold, through which vehicle and with what reporting consequences. The fund manager must decide between a Swiss limited qualified investor fund and a Singapore variable capital company, as well as where the manager itself should be licensed. The private banker, trustee or executor must deal with tokens that already exist in a structure or an estate and must get them out again safely. The fellow lawyer, Steuerberater or compliance officer needs a reliable map of two systems in order to advise a client who has crossed from one into the other.
These readers share a trait that shapes the book: they do not need to be convinced that digital assets matter. They need to know what the law requires, why it requires it, what happens when the requirement is ignored, and what a sensible person in their position does next. Each chapter therefore follows the same inner order. It states the rule, explains the reasoning behind the rule, draws the practical consequence, names the pitfalls that recur in practice and, where a respectable opposing view exists, states that view fairly. Worked examples use concrete fact patterns, such as a Zug GmbH issuing a utility token or a Singapore VCC holding staked ETH, because the law of digital assets is applied to facts of exactly that kind.
For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of October 2026.