The digital assets marketplace has been quite volatile over the past 12-18 months with seemingly staggering setbacks and ever increasing successes and technical development. The public debate has been equally jarring with some commentators heralding the end of a distracting experiment with no real utility while others continue to believe in the potential of decentralization to benefit society at large. So which is true? In a first for the NY ACAMS Chapter, this two part series will define digital assets, describe the regulatory environment they operate within, provide an overview of the digital asset ecosystem, and discuss some of the various dimensions of risk that market events of the last 12-18 months have identified.