For years, crypto-related disputes were dominated by fraud allegations, regulatory enforcement actions, and questions about whether digital assets should be classified as securities or commodities. Today, the market is evolving.
As digital asset businesses mature, a new category of disputes is emerging. These disputes look less like regulatory battles and more like traditional commercial conflicts involving contracts, valuations, joint ventures, intellectual property, infrastructure investments, and operational failures. The difference is that they involve assets, technologies, and business models that continue to challenge traditional thinking regarding legal and financial frameworks.
During a recent panel discussion on current trends in crypto-related disputes, Ankura’s Julian Honowitz joined leading practitioners from the legal, arbitration, and expert witness communities to share insights into where the market is headed and what organizations should be prepared for next.
Their perspectives point to five important developments that businesses should understand.
1. Crypto Disputes Are Shifting From Regulatory Battles to Commercial Conflicts
Much of the public conversation around crypto has focused on regulatory investigations and securities enforcement actions. While those issues remain important, many practitioners are now seeing a growing number of disputes arising from ordinary business relationships.
Crypto exchanges, mining operations, blockchain developers, infrastructure providers, token issuers, and investors are entering increasingly sophisticated commercial arrangements. As those relationships mature, disagreements over contracts, performance obligations, governance structures, partnership arrangements, and investment outcomes are becoming more common.
This trend mirrors the evolution of many emerging industries. Early disputes tend to focus on legitimacy and regulation. As the market grows, disputes increasingly center on commercial expectations and the allocation of risk between business partners.
For companies operating in the digital asset ecosystem, this means traditional disputes expertise is becoming just as important as technical crypto knowledge.
2. Arbitration Is Becoming a Preferred Forum for Resolving Crypto Disputes
The panelists consistently highlighted why arbitration is increasingly appearing in crypto-related agreements.
Digital asset businesses often operate across multiple jurisdictions, making litigation in national courts challenging and expensive. Arbitration offers several advantages in this environment:
- Greater confidentiality for sensitive business information
- More flexibility in procedural rules
- The ability to select decision-makers with relevant expertise
- Faster resolution than traditional litigation
- More predictable cross-border enforcement through international arbitration frameworks
This flexibility can be especially valuable when disputes involve highly technical issues, such as blockchain infrastructure, token economics, decentralized governance mechanisms, or smart contract functionality.
For startups and growth-stage companies, arbitration also provides a mechanism for resolving disputes without the prolonged and public nature of court proceedings, allowing leadership teams to remain focused on business operations rather than years of litigation.
3. Valuation Remains One of the Most Difficult Issues in Crypto Disputes
Few challenges are more complex than determining damages when the underlying asset can fluctuate dramatically in value.
Robust damages analyses rely on established valuation methodologies that are typically applied to businesses and industries with relatively stable underlying economics. Digital assets introduce a different level of uncertainty but must be met with the same rigor.
The panel discussed the unique difficulty of valuing assets such as Bitcoin and assessing future economic performance of businesses that are built on such assets when volatility remains a defining characteristic of the market. Questions that might seem straightforward in other disputes become significantly more complicated in crypto-related matters:
- Should damages be measured in fiat currency or in the underlying digital asset?
- When should valuation occur?
- Should a claimant be compensated for appreciation that occurred after the dispute?
- How should future expectations be incorporated into damages calculations?
- What assumptions are reasonable in an environment where asset values can change dramatically in short periods?
As a result, valuation experts increasingly play a central role in helping tribunals understand not only the mechanics of valuing businesses that operate with digital assets but also the economic realities underlying the dispute.
4. Technical Expertise Matters, but Clarity Matters Even More
One of the most practical lessons from the panel was that deep technical knowledge alone is not enough.
Arbitrators, judges, and business decision-makers often must evaluate highly complex concepts involving blockchain architecture, token issuance, transaction validation, smart contracts, governance mechanisms, and digital asset economics. Success frequently depends on the ability to explain those concepts clearly and credibly.
The panelists emphasized that the most effective experts are often not those with the most technical credentials. Instead, they are the professionals who can translate complicated issues into language that non-specialists can understand.
As disputes become more sophisticated, organizations will increasingly need teams that combine technical, legal, economic, and industry expertise. The ability to bridge those disciplines may ultimately determine the effectiveness of a case strategy.
5. Traditional Business Fundamentals Still Matter
Despite the uniqueness of digital assets, one recurring theme emerged throughout the discussion: Many crypto disputes are driven by issues that would be familiar in any industry.
Poor documentation, informal decision-making, unclear governance structures, inadequate controls, and weak contracting practices continue to create significant risk.
Several panelists noted that many crypto businesses still operate with startup-style cultures in which major commercial decisions may be documented through fragmented communications rather than formal legal processes. While this approach can accelerate innovation, it can also create substantial challenges when disputes arise years later.
Organizations that establish clear contractual frameworks, maintain robust governance processes, implement appropriate security controls, and document key business decisions are likely to be in a stronger position if disputes occur.
Looking Ahead: The Next Phase of Crypto Disputes
The digital asset industry is entering a new stage of maturity. As adoption expands and business models become more sophisticated, disputes are increasingly moving beyond questions of regulation toward questions of commercial accountability.
That shift is creating new demands for legal counsel, arbitrators, valuation professionals, economists, forensic experts, and industry specialists. Success will depend not only on understanding blockchain technology but also on applying core principles of finance, valuation, governance, and dispute resolution to an emerging asset class.
For businesses operating in the digital asset ecosystem, preparation now may make the difference between successfully navigating a dispute and being overwhelmed by one. As commercial disputes continue to grow in both size and complexity, organizations will need advisors who can connect the technical, financial, and legal dimensions of these matters and help stakeholders make informed decisions in a rapidly evolving market.
Ankura Insight
As crypto-related disputes become more sophisticated, organizations increasingly need multi-disciplinary support that extends beyond legal analysis alone. From valuation and damages assessments to forensic investigations, asset tracing, governance reviews, and expert testimony, successful outcomes often require a combination of financial, technical, and industry expertise. Ankura’s professionals work alongside counsel and clients to help quantify complex claims, analyze emerging digital asset issues, and provide the clarity decision-makers need when navigating high-stakes disputes in rapidly evolving markets.
© Copyright 2026. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of Ankura Consulting Group, LLC, its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals. Ankura is not a law firm and cannot provide legal advice.
