Wave Digital Assets, LLC (B-423217; B-423217.2)

You should not care.

Category: Compliance, contract administration

Date: 14 March 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423217-b-4232172

Wave Digital Assets, LLC, a Los Angeles-based firm, protested the US Marshals Service’s award of an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract to Command Services & Support, Inc. (CMDSS), under RFP No. 15M50024QA4400003 for managing and disposing of seized/forfeited class 2-4 cryptocurrencies valued at $77.1 million.

These cryptocurrencies are less mainstream than class 1 cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum that use cold storage wallets and are easily liquidated. Class 2-4, meanwhile, often require specialized hardware and software wallets for management and disposal.

Wave, deemed technically unacceptable and not contesting this finding, argued that CMDSS and a third offeror should also have been rejected for failing to demonstrate possession of federal and state licenses.

Wave claimed the agency improperly evaluated CMDSS’s proposal by not requiring proof of specific licenses and detailed compliance with laws such as the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, alleging a deviation from the solicitation. GAO found the solicitation’s license and compliance provisions were performance requirements, not evaluation criteria, and thus matters of contract administration outside its review scope. It also upheld the agency’s discretion in assessing offerors’ general compliance descriptions as reasonable, given the evolving cryptocurrency regulatory landscape.

The protest was denied, as GAO determined the agency’s evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation.

Digest

Protest that agency failed to properly apply the solicitation's stated evaluation criteria is denied where the agency's evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation.