In his famous 2018 speech, William Hinman, Digital Asset Transactions: When Howey Met Gary (Plastic), the Director of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), asked...more
Key Takeaways - According to sources with firsthand knowledge, the SEC is conducting an industry-wide inquiry into alleged insider trading activities of cryptocurrency exchanges. Insider trading occurs when a corporate...more
The People’s Bank of China (“PBOC”) announced this morning that it is banning crypto currencies and related services, including “trading, order matching, token issuance and derivatives for virtual currencies are strictly...more
Strikeout for Bitcoin ETF - Another ETF bites the dust. On February 26th the SEC rejected the application of NYSE Acre for the approval of an exchange traded fund sponsored by the New York firm of Wilshire Phoenix to...more
The SEC Division of Enforcement’s 2019 Annual Report, released earlier this month, shows a continuing focus on activities involving blockchain and cryptocurrency, and its website shows an increase in cases since last fiscal...more
New York regulators continued an aggressive approach against certain entities engaged in virtual currency businesses when the state's Attorney General’s office obtained an ex parte order precluding companies associated with a...more
Last week, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) backed up its strong public statements about enforcing the anti-money laundering (AML) laws with respect to cryptocurrency by bringing an enforcement action against...more
In a regulatory first, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a cease and desist order and imposed a $200,000 fine against a hedge fund that invested in digital assets and its founder. ...more
Technology evolves and events unfold at a dizzying pace in the blockchain world, but even by those standards this past week was tough to keep up with. Every day seemed to bring a new first for the industry...more
SEC Bars Perpetrator of Initial Coin Offering Fraud - On August 14, 2018, the SEC obtained permanent officer-and-director and penny stocks bars against David T. Laurance of Tomahawk Exploration LLC (“Tomahawk”), who...more
Earlier this month, the District Court for the Central District of California imposed a prison sentence of one year and a day, with three years of supervised release, on defendant Theresa Lynn Tetley, who had pleaded guilty...more
As we previously have blogged, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) became one of the first regulators to wade into the regulation of cryptocurrency when it released interpretive guidance in March 2013 stating...more
Initial Coin Offerings, or ICOs, were an extremely popular way of raising capital in exchange for crypto tokens in 2017 and have led to class action litigation in 2017 and 2018. While ICOs have been around since 2013, they...more