Read our full FAQ here.

DLT Law is a boutique law firm working exclusively on blockchain, digital assets and Web3.

Since 2017 we’ve advised founders, protocols, funds, exchanges, fintech companies and financial institutions on the legal, regulatory and commercial issues involved in launching and scaling blockchain projects.

Our work covers project architecture and product design, decentralization and governance, token launches, licensing, transactions, fundraising and cross-border structuring – and continues into the ongoing corporate, regulatory and tax questions a live project generates. 

Crypto is not a practice group added onto a general firm – it is the only thing we do.

Two things: we work only on Web3, and we advise across jurisdictions rather than within one.

Both come from experience on the other side. Our team came from large law firms and in-house roles, and saw the same two failures repeatedly: A firm serving Web3 alongside ten other industries can’t track market structures and business models that change daily – crypto isn’t TradFi with a tech twist, and treating it that way produces advice that is technically correct and commercially useless.

The second failure is structural. Web3 projects are global by design and therefore exposed to several legal, regulatory and tax regimes at once, while law firms are local by default. Even international firms with offices in many countries tend to deliver cross-border advice as separate opinions from separate offices, leaving the client to reconcile them. A global-by-design project needs one coherent position, not five local ones.

DLT Law was built to close both gaps.

We build legal strategy across every jurisdiction a project actually touches – 

most commonly the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the UAE, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Cayman Islands, the BVI, Australia and Israel.

This industry doesn’t respect borders: founders based in one country, entities set up in another, launching in several more, with users everywhere. We don’t force that reality into a single legal system. Instead we work from the rules that apply across all the relevant jurisdictions at once, producing one strategy – how to structure the product, token or business model so it works everywhere it needs to, where to establish entities, and how to raise from investors in different markets.

We have direct presence in Israel, the UAE and Europe. Where a matter requires a lawyer admitted locally – a formal opinion, a license application, a filing, court representation – we instruct and manage trusted counsel in that jurisdiction across the US, the UK, Asia, Africa and Australia, and remain accountable for the overall position. You get one team driving the whole picture, instead of a pile of disconnected local advisors each working from their own read of your business.

“Global legal advisory” means strategically tailoring the advice in a way that takes into account all relevant regimes.  

Depending on the project’s stage and needs, it can include:

• Product Counseling – Structuring the product in a way to be regulatory compliant under different regimes at once –  US laws (securities laws, commodities laws, Bank Secrecy Act, state crypto and money transmission laws), European laws (MiCA, GDPR, MiFID, Payment Services Directive and Electronic Money Directive), UAE laws (Federal laws governed by the Central Bank and the Securities and Commodities Authority, alongside Emirate or freezone-specific laws governed by Dubai’s VARA, ADGM’s FSRA, etc), alongside other crypto hubs and key jurisdictions, including Canada, Australia, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland and significant offshore jurisdictions.

This can take place early in the process – when structuring the project pre-launch, when contemplating new features, as part of a market expansion exercise, or when revisiting existing product suite for regulatory compliance.

• Corporate Structure – Where and how to set up the project’s legal entities is not an afterthought – it is a strategic decision the founding team needs to make. A corporate structure should support what the project is trying to achieve – from decentralization, flow of funds, regulatory, legal exposure, tax, investability and institutional-appeal. Copying what other projects did may not be the right choice for your project.

To find the right structure for your project, being a global firm means looking at the entire globe as possible options, considering the pros, cons and no-gos of each jurisdiction, and putting together a structure that best serves your needs.

• Licensing – Congratulations – your project needs a license! Now, which license and where? Sometimes the answer is obvious, you need license x in country y. In many cases, there are different options for you to choose from. For example, a MiCA license in any EU country grants the licensee the exact same market access – which country should you choose to pursue a license in? Comparing the different options and applying that to your project’s specific circumstances requires not only reading the law, but also understanding what different EU regulators are expecting, what they require and what does the process entail. Not all licenses are born equal, and being a global advisor means helping clients navigate that landscape.

DLT Law is headquartered in Israel, with representatives in the EU (Cyprus), Switzerland and the UAE; but that is not where we operate and not where our clients are from. 

Our clients live in the US, Canada, UK, EU, Israel, South Africa, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore (and more), and require legal support in those markets and others. That is what we provide them with.

“Jurisdiction agnostic” mean we have no vested interest in any particular jurisdiction – whatever is the best jurisdiction for your project’s particular needs are, is what we will work with.

When you contemplate where to set up the corporate entity, where to pursue a license, which market you should focus on next – a traditional law firm would “sell” you its home jurisdiction, because it wants your business, and if you choose another location it wouldn’t be able to support you.

DLT Law does exactly the opposite – we would present you with the appropriate options alongside the real pros and cons they would offer, tailored to your specific needs, detail the costs, timeline and requirements, and help you make the best decision. We would then, together with our trusted local providers execute the chosen plan in whatever jurisdiction we end up choosing together – from corporate setup through licensing to regulator engagement. As we can support you in any chosen jurisdiction, we have no bias and no incentive to convince you that a specific jurisdiction is “best” – it’s all about what is right for you.

When you focus on one industry and live and breathe it for almost a decade, keep yourself constantly informed and learning, and incorporate a network of local experts across key jurisdictions – you are positioned to do exactly that.

Most crypto legal work is strategy and structuring, not local filing. 

A project or token launch involves one set of interlocking decisions – entity location, token classification, who can be sold to, which markets to enter and in what order. These strategic decisions are made centrally, with a strategic global perspective and with the support of local and subject-matter experts as needed. Then, tactical pieces that require local presence, access or admission (a jurisdiction-specific opinion, a license application, litigation) are run by local counsel, under DLT Law’s instruction. The alternative – four firms each answering their own question in isolation – tends to produce advice that does not add up to a workable plan.

Yes, on most substantial matters. Where a filing, license application, formal legal opinion or court appearance requires admission in a specific jurisdiction, DLT Law engages and manages local counsel while remaining the client’s single point of contact and the owner of the overall strategy. We only work with vetted, experienced professionals we can trust to provide the best results for our clients.

Yes, and this is a common arrangement. Projects frequently have capable legal counsel or an in-house team with limited digital-asset experience or a jurisdictional-scope limitation. In those engagements DLT Law acts as the crypto regulatory specialist, or the legal team’s power multiplier – product counseling, token classification, licensing, cross-border market entry – anything the existing legal team can’t, won’t or is too over-capacity to handle can be outsourced to us, either as a full mandate or on an ad-hoc basis.

Yes. Fractional GC is a core offering for projects that need continuous legal coverage before a full-time hire is justified. The service gives founders ongoing access to counsel who already know the product, the cap table and the regulatory posture – the continuity of in-house legal without the cost of building the function. Typical users are post-seed to Series B companies, and companies in a licensing process that need consistent regulatory attention.

Think of it as having an in-house legal team, without the cost or limitations of hiring just one person: instead of a single generalist counsel who has to cover every area themselves, our fractional GC service gives you ongoing access to our full bench, commercial, corporate, and regulatory, whichever your situation actually needs, at a fraction of what a full-time in-house hire would cost.

Both, and it’s genuinely never too early to talk to us. We know most early-stage founders don’t have much budget yet, and we’re not going to sell you a full-scope engagement you don’t need. 

Instead, we help you find the minimum viable legal setup for where you actually are: the handful of decisions, entity structure, initial regulatory strategy, fundraising documents, that matter most and are hardest to unwind later, without paying for the extras a later-stage company would need but you don’t (yet). Clients often describe working with us as closer to having an in-house team than hiring outside counsel.

For more established companies, we’re just as much a fit for jurisdictional expansion, product counseling, licensing, ad-hoc advisory, or our fractional GC services.

Every engagement starts with a free discovery call, before any scope or fee is proposed. 

That means you get clarity on what you actually need before any pricing conversation happens, rather than being sold a generic package. From there, we scope the work and price it flat and transparently to match your specific situation so you’re never paying for more than what you actually need.

Discrete projects – token classification memos, entity structuring, licensing applications, listing opinions – are quoted as fixed fees, so the cost is known before work begins. 

Ongoing advisory relationships, including fractional GC, are structured as monthly retainers.

Hourly billing is the exception rather than the default.

Every engagement starts with a free discovery call, before any scope or fee is proposed. 

Then – each quote is unique, based on the client’s needs.

As a high level price indication – below are our price ranges for standard project-scopes:

• Token classification legal opinion (for a single jurisdiction) typically falls in the $5-10k range (depending on jurisdiction, token type and complexity); 
• A multi-jurisdiction project corporate structure – $6-15k (excluding actual corporate setup – prices vary based on entity type and location); 
• fractional GC retainers from $3k+ per month, depending on scope.
• Equity/Token Raise support (drafting, negotiating terms) – $5-10k

DLT Law’s philosophy is that “we’re builders, not fighters” – we don’t take on litigation and criminal cases. Where a client gets in trouble we do work together with external litigators to combine their expertise with our familiarity with the client and the business, but never as lead counsel. 

We do not file tax returns or represent clients in front of tax authorities.

We do not act ourselves as a corporate service provider, registered agent or nominee directors, but we do plug in providers who would do that for the client.

We work across crypto and blockchain broadly, which naturally includes traditional businesses building crypto capabilities into an existing product, not just founders launching a crypto-native project. 

A payments company adding stablecoin rails, a fintech layering in a tokenization feature, or a Web2 company considering launching a token all need the same specialized crypto expertise as a Web3-native team.

Read our full FAQ here.

It differs from an ordinary software startup in two ways. The consequences of getting it wrong are of a different order — hacks, misuse of the product, loss of customer funds, unregistered offerings, unlicensed activity, frozen accounts, personal liability for founders. And its legal direction isn’t chosen internally: it’s set by three forces at once, being markets, community and regulators.

It differs from a fintech or traditional finance startup in something other than novel technology. What this technology makes possible has no settled place in existing legal and regulatory frameworks, which were built around intermediaries, borders and identifiable counterparties.

Four main reasons why the unique nature of crypto projects require a different legal service:

Regulation sets direction, not just compliance. For a conventional software company, legal review happens after the product exists. In crypto it happens before, because regulatory analysis determines what you can build: whether a token can carry fee accrual or revenue share, whether you can serve US persons, whether you can touch customer assets, whether a single feature converts you into a licensed financial institution. These are product decisions with legal answers, and they are expensive to reverse once a token or product is live.

Decentralization has no legal precedent. No other industry deliberately engineers away its own control. There is no established body of law for it and no template, and it cuts both ways: dispersing control can narrow regulatory exposure while opening questions about who contracts, who owns the IP, who bears liability and who can actually be sued. Getting this right is design work, not research.

Global by design affects commercial structure, not only regulatory exposure. Which entity signs, where IP sits, how the team is employed across borders, how a token issuance is taxed, whether investor rights survive in each relevant forum. Advice grounded in a single legal system doesn’t merely miss risk — it produces structures that don’t function commercially.

Industry deal mechanics are their own discipline. Token warrants, market-making arrangements, liquidity provisioning, validator and staking agreements, points programs, RWA platform economics. An excellent securities lawyer can paper any of these; without industry exposure they won’t recognize when the terms are off-market or when the economics simply don’t work.

A crypto lawyer works at the intersection of financial regulation, product design, risk management and commercial transactions. The core analytical work is determining how a specific product is treated under securities law, payments and e-money regulation, custody rules, AML obligations, commodities and derivatives law, and cross-border corporate and tax structuring.

The output is not a memo but a design: a product and corporate structure under which the intended business is lawful in the markets that matter, and ongoing advice as the product, the market and the regulation all move. In practice that means classification analysis, entity and token structures, token and fundraising documentation, licensing applications, listing opinions, crypto-heavy commercial transactions, exchange and market-maker agreements, and the judgment calls in between.

Understanding the technology is a prerequisite, not the service.

Founders ask whether it’s too early far more often than it actually is. The right point is before tokenomics, entity structure or fundraising terms are fixed, because those three decisions determine regulatory classification, which investors can participate, which exchanges will list, what disclosures are required and which markets you can reach.

Reversing them later is possible but costly. A token already in circulation cannot easily be redesigned, and an entity established in the wrong jurisdiction is expensive to migrate — often at exactly the moment you’re trying to close a round.

For pre-seed teams the practical answer is a scoped, minimum-viable legal framework matched to the current stage, not a full build-out. 

Good counsel should be willing to tell you what you can safely defer.

The most useful test is whether they understand your product before they answer your legal question. Crypto advice is highly fact-dependent — a two-word change in how a token accrues value can change its classification — so an answer given before the mechanics are understood isn’t worth much.

Beyond that, three things worth probing. Ask for specific comparable matters rather than a client logo wall. Ask how they handle jurisdictions where they aren’t admitted, and who owns the overall strategy when several jurisdictions are involved. And ask them to explain a risk in commercial terms: a firm that can only quote the statute back to you won’t help you make decisions.

There is also a fit question that matters more in this industry than in most. Founders here tend to reason from first principles and are unwilling to accept “because the regulation says so” without understanding why. A firm that can’t engage at that level — that treats the law as a set of rules to be recited rather than a system to be navigated — will be ignored, which is worse than being wrong.

Usually not. Having users in a country is not the same as offering or soliciting services there, and most regulatory perimeters turn on the latter.

The efficient sequence is to build one global strategy first, identify the handful of jurisdictions that create genuine exposure given your actual go-to-market, and buy local advice only there. Commissioning memos from twenty jurisdictions produces expense and contradiction rather than clarity.

For most projects pre-Series A, external specialists are the better economics. An experienced crypto GC commands a senior salary, and no single hire covers regulation, corporate, commercial and fundraising at depth.

Companies that do have in-house legal usually retain specialist crypto counsel anyway. A strong commercial lawyer may have no MiCA experience; a regulatory specialist may not run financings. The two roles are complementary rather than substitutes, and the common pattern is in-house counsel owning the day-to-day with external specialists on classification, licensing and cross-border structuring.

Less than most founders assume, and none of it needs to be polished. What makes a first call productive is a clear description of what the product actually does, who the users are and where they are, whether a token is involved and what it’s meant to do, how you plan to raise, and any deadline you’re working against — a listing, a round, a launch date, a regulator’s letter.

Documents help but aren’t required. A deck, a draft tokenomics model or a whitepaper is enough; a data room is not necessary at this stage.