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Fenwick & West LLP

Looking Under the Hood of $TRUMP’s Legal Strategy

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On Friday, January 17, 2024, President Donald J. Trump announced the launch of the $TRUMP memecoin, which was organized and sold by CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump Organization. Within 60 hours, $TRUMP reportedly...more

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Coinbase Court Embraces ‘Ecosystem’ Approach to Identifying Crypto-Asset Securities

Key Points - In a thorough decision, a federal district judge in New York largely denied Coinbase’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a case brought by the SEC. Applying the plaintiff-friendly standards required at the...more

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Are Crypto Tokens Securities? Terraform Court Says ‘Yes’ in Extensive Decision

Key Points - In SEC v. Terraform, the court has granted summary judgment for the SEC on its claim that the defendants offered and sold unregistered securities in the form of “crypto assets.” This comes amidst the SEC...more

Mayer Brown Free Writings + Perspectives

Defining Digital Asset Securities: US District Court Issues Summary Judgment Rulings in SEC v. Ripple Labs

For the past several years, many have viewed “SEC v. Ripple” as one of the defining conflicts in the US crypto regulatory landscape. At the heart of this dispute is the question of whether digital tokens are “securities” for...more

Morrison & Foerster LLP

SDNY Issues Split Decision in SEC v Ripple Labs, Potentially Complicating Analysis of When Crypto-Tokens Will Be Treated as...

On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres in the Southern District of New York issued the much-anticipated summary judgment order in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) case against Ripple Labs and two senior leaders,...more

Goodwin

Court Denies Dapper Labs’ Motion to Dismiss, Finding That NFTs May Be Securities

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On February 22, 2023, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York denied a motion to dismiss a putative class action brought by purchasers of a non-fungible token (NFT) against Dapper Labs, Inc....more

Morrison & Foerster LLP

Top 5 SEC Enforcement Developments for November 2022

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In order to provide an overview for busy in-house counsel and compliance professionals, we summarize below some of the most important SEC enforcement developments from the past month, with links to primary resources....more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Court Rules in Favor of SEC in LBRY Enforcement Action

On November 7, 2022, Judge Paul Barbadoro of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire issued an order in SEC v. LBRY, Inc., granting the SEC’s motion for summary judgment against LBRY Inc. (LBRY). The court...more

Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP

Expansion of SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit portends more active enforcement

On May 3, 2022, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the expansion of its newly styled Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (Unit) (formerly known as the Cyber Unit), housed within its Division of...more

Fox Rothschild LLP

Know Your NFT Before You Sell It or Expect to Send the Money Back

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With the massive explosion in interest in the use of non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”), purveyors are always looking for new avenues and areas to utilize NFTs. NFTs are being integrated into many different facets of commerce. ...more

Amundsen Davis LLC

BlockFi Settlement: A New Era in Crypto Regulation?

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On February 14, 2022, BlockFi Lending LLC (BlockFi) settled charges with the SEC and state securities regulators for a total of $100 million in penalties. BlockFi was charged with a failure to register the offer and sales of...more

Dechert LLP

“Hashing” It Out: Federal Jury Decides Some Cryptocurrency Products are not Securities

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Whether a cryptocurrency product is a security is an issue with serious regulatory consequences. In recent years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has taken a broad position that various crypto assets are...more

Snell & Wilmer

Cryptocurrency: Tombstones on the Road to Regulatory Clarity

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In the intersection of financial markets and the internet, sometimes it seems like the only certainty in the year of cryptocurrency and “meme stocks,” like GameStop and AMC, is the continuing legal haze of cryptocurrencies....more

Morrison & Foerster LLP

SEC To LBRY: “You’re Overdue.” Recent Enforcement Action Highlights Evolving SEC Focus On Decentralization

“Decentralization” is a concept that has consistently vexed the entire blockchain-enabled ecosystem in the U.S., including its counsel and regulators, wherein a lack of clarity on the exact definition of decentralization has...more

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP

NFTs And Securities Laws: How To Create And Sell Compliant Non-Fungible Tokens

NFTs are extremely hot right now. In March 2021, the digital artist Beeple made history when he sold his NFT of digital art for $69.3 million through Christie’s auction house. Jack Dorsey sold his first tweet as an NFT for...more

Amundsen Davis LLC

Ripple Effect: SEC Lawsuit against Cryptocurrency Company May Provide Guidance For Crypto Industry

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On December 21, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a high-profile enforcement action against a major cryptocurrency company. The SEC complaint alleges violations of federal securities laws by defendant...more

Proskauer - The Capital Commitment

Three Critical Questions That Will (Hopefully) be Answered by the SEC’s Lawsuit against Ripple

Late last year, the SEC filed a litigated action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executive officers (collectively, “Ripple”), alleging that Ripple...more

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

U.S. District Judge Rejects Argument that Sale of “Stand-In” Tokens Was Not a Sale of Unregistered Securities

On January 8, 2021, Judge Richard Seeborg of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an Order denying a motion to dismiss in S.E.C. v. NAC Foundation, LLC, et al. The U.S. Securities &...more

Proskauer - Blockchain and the Law

CFTC Chairman States Ether is a Commodity

In remarks made at the Yahoo! All Markets Summit in New York, Heath Tarbert, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), said that he believed the Ether cryptocurrency was a “commodity” and should be...more

Perkins Coie

Blockchain Week in Review - August 2019 #2

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U.S. Regulatory - Kik Files Answer to SEC Complaint - On August 7, Canadian messaging company Kik Interactive Inc. (“Kik”) filed its answer to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“SEC”) complaint filed in the...more

Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP

Fintech in Brief: SEC Staff Provides Additional Clarity on Digital Assets as Securities

Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) provided additional guidance on digital assets, which include “tokens” and “coins.” The SEC’s Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (“FinHub”)...more

A&O Shearman

Senior SEC Official Clarifies Whether and When Digital Assets Are Securities

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When assessing whether a digital asset is a security, the key question to ask is whether a third party is driving the expectation of a return, says a senior Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official....more

Jones Day

SEC Provides Framework to Determine if Digital Assets are Securities

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The Situation: The Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Corporate Finance, William Hinman, has weighed in on when digital assets will be characterized as securities. The Result: In...more

Perkins Coie

Senior SEC Official Provides Regulatory Clarity for Digital Assets

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During a speech in San Francisco last week at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, William Hinman, Director of the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), provided some welcome...more

Bennett Jones LLP

Shapeshifting Cryptoassets

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As cryptocurrencies and blockchain assets become more popular and begin to permeate into the wider financial markets, regulators have struggled to understand how they work and how to treat them under existing legal...more

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