Podcast: Is Cryptocurrency a Security (like an orange grove)?
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
On February 6, 2018, the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs conducted a hearing entitled “Virtual Currencies: The Oversight Role of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S....more