McGuireWoods partners David Hirsch, Jason Cowley and J. Patrick Rowan and associate Steffanny Acevedo explored issues surrounding digital assets and national security in the May 2026 edition of The Review of Banking & Financial Services.
While crypto assets introduce new risks — including large-scale theft by state-sponsored actors, “pig butchering” fraud schemes, money laundering, sanctions evasion and ransomware — they also present opportunities to strengthen U.S. financial systems and extend global economic influence, the authors wrote.
Crypto assets “present a complex set of national security considerations, as all financial markets do,” the authors explained. “Some of those risks have close analogs in traditional financial markets, and others are novel and derive from unique characteristics of blockchain technology. As a result, the most successful methods to address national security risks posed by crypto markets are variations of what has worked before, combined with risk-specific approaches and technological tools that are tailored to what is new.”
Among the key topics addressed were the activities of North Korea’s Lazarus Group, which was linked to approximately $2 billion in cryptocurrency theft in 2025; Iran’s use of crypto to evade international sanctions; transnational cartel laundering operations; and the continued threat of ransomware attacks demanding payment in digital assets. The authors examined the tools available to combat these threats, including robust compliance programs, emerging privacy-preserving technologies, public-private partnerships, law enforcement coordination and recent legislation including the GENIUS Act.
Hirsch is the former chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit. Cowley chairs McGuireWoods’ Government Investigations and White-Collar Litigation Department and is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Rowan spent 18 years at the U.S. Department of Justice and served as Assistant Attorney General for National Security. Acevedo is an associate in the firm’s Jacksonville office who represents financial institutions and commercial clients in high-stakes litigation.
