Podcast: Is Cryptocurrency a Security (like an orange grove)?
Although the U.S. Government under President Trump has flipped the script on its approach to cryptocurrency in just a matter of weeks, one big question that is still out there is will the courts chill the recent enthusiasm of...more
On February 22, 2023, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, in a 64-page opinion, denied a motion to dismiss filed by Dapper Labs, Inc., the developer behind the NBA Top Shot NFT platform,...more
Dapper Labs was founded in 2018 shortly after the debut of its first NFT collection, “CryptoKitties,” which was so successful it created a bottleneck of transactions on the decentralized Ethereum Network. Seeking faster...more
The start of 2023 hasn’t gone much better for the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry than the end of 2022 did. In declining to dismiss a case alleging that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) called Moments are considered...more
While a conclusion to the much-hyped case may be approaching, market participants should be wary of doomsday prognostications. As a new year begins, the digital assets industry is still enduring a deep and widespread crypto...more
“Decentralization” refers to the movement of supervision and decision-making away from a single central actor, and toward a dispersed network of actors. Such networks are facilitated by the use of blockchain technology and...more
A key question for any company considering the issuance of cryptocurrency is whether that digital asset will be treated by regulators as a security, like BP stock, or a commodity, like Bitcoin. In 2019, the Securities and...more
With offerings across a growing number of online platforms and increased trading volume, NFT issuers, promoters, and buyers should consider the legal and regulatory implications relating to NFTs and federal securities laws. ...more
On April 24, 2019, Skadden hosted a webinar titled “The Current State of Cryptocurrency Enforcement and Securities Litigation.” The presented topics largely focused on the SEC’s evolving regulatory approach to cryptocurrency...more
While SEC FinHub’s new framework announced last week for identifying crypto-securities suggests continued resistance for those using digital assets to access capital markets, an SEC no-action letter issued the same day to...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
On July 25, 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) published an investigative report (the “Report”) cautioning market participants that the offer and sale of digital assets such as “coins” or “tokens,”...more
Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) involve issuers offering virtual coins or tokens that are created and disseminated using distributed ledger or blockchain technology. The capital raised from the offer will fund the development...more