Blockchain and Digital Assets

Matt Green
May 2025

Head of Blockchain and Digital Assets and Technology Disputes, Matt Green, speaks with Commercial Dispute Resolution (CDR) about his career in the crypto asset space and how some of the notable cases he has worked on have influenced legal precedent around blockchain and digital assets. 

Matt’s interview was published online in Commercial Dispute Resolution (CDR), 12 May 2025 and can be found here.

Discussing the first crypto case he was involved with, the landmark AA v Persons Unknown, Matt explains “I was enormously opportunistic, and I just rode with it… I was in the right place at the right time.”

He notes how there was “a big gap in the market” at the time, with many in the blockchain and digital asset space not knowing that there were legal routes to trace and recover their stolen or hacked assets.

Speaking on lessons learned during his career, Matt comments:“It is attrition, staying in the game, not overreaching. Being very aware that you don’t know everything. I don’t think anybody could say they did have all the answers, on the basis that the judiciary and the industry are trying to figure it out.”

Discussing the evolution of both his practice and the digital asset space itself, Matt explains that “there will be huge intellectual property battles about a variety of different things that we probably can’t even imagine yet, it’s almost unknowable.”

With many of Matt’s cases showing the “grizzly places” of the crypto world – from pig butchering scams on Facebook groups for grieving widows to tracing stolen assets to an organ farm in Southeast Asia, and the high-profile disputes over the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Yet despite this, Matt encourages people to see the wider utility of this technology, telling CDR that he would like to see the “wider adoption and understanding of the applications of blockchain tech and digital assets.”

For junior lawyers looking to get into the constantly evolving world of digital assets and blockchain, Matt explains that there are plenty of ways: “set up a blog, write articles, start a podcast, join groups. If you get involved with the industry that you choose, you’re going to be much more valuable to a law firm than if you don’t, and there is no date by which you should start doing this.”

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