Episode 3 - The Freeman Law Project - Cryptocurrency Regulation and Taxation: A Brief Primer
Crypto Firms Announce New Products in Payments, Investments, Custody - A major U.S. digital asset management company recently announced the creation and public launch of its MakerDAO Trust, which “offers investors the...more
Of particular importance for the crypto industry, the opinion analyzes the SEC’s allegations that Binance and BAM offered and sold various tokens and programs to investors as investment contracts without registering them with...more
The decision, which addresses a broad range of market activity by Coinbase relating to 13 third-party tokens, could have significant implications for market participants. On March 27, 2024, Judge Katherine Failla of the US...more
According to mythology, the titan Prometheus gave humans the gift of fire. As punishment, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock and an eagle would swoop down to eat his liver, which would then regrow overnight, for the cycle...more
In addition to tokens and crypto issuers, the SEC enforcement continued its focus on crypto lending and trading platforms. In January 2023, the SEC brought two enforcement actions against three firms for unregistered offer...more
On the one hand, the year ended where it began. The legislation on stabelecoins and market structure that would provide a regulatory framework for digital assets has still not been enacted into law. And Securities and...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
The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued a cease-and-desist order on August 28, 2023, charging Impact Theory, LLC (“Impact Theory”) with conducting an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities in violation...more
Just barely two weeks ago, we wrote about the half-victory for Ripple Labs in its ongoing litigation with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), in which Judge Analisa Torres granted partial summary judgment in favor...more
On July 13, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an important decision on a closely watched securities case surrounding crypto token classification. The primary question for the Court in...more
On June 5, 2023, the SEC filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, known to the world as...more
DeFi, Stablecoin Products Launch; Bitcoin Network Spikes Due to NFTs - According to reports, a new decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol recently launched that allows users to deposit the stablecoins USDC or DAI in a...more
The SEC has rung the bell again on a celebrity touting a crypto token offering without adequate disclosure of a paid role. On October 3, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission released its order instituting cease and...more
The crypto token asset class has grown substantially in the last couple of years, drawing the watchful eyes of regulators. While the emerging world of crypto has created more questions than answers, the U.S. Securities and...more
It is highly likely, and hardly a surprise, that in the near future the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") will increase the number of enforcement actions it brings against crypto industry participants. It is...more
In a speech before the Aspen Security Forum on August 3, 2021, SEC Chair Gary Gensler followed the lead of his predecessor and repeated the SEC’s view that current securities regulations are clear and almost all tokens are...more
The no-action letter is the first to expressly permit token transfer off-platform to non-users and conversion to fiat currency by token holders. As crypto prices surge, we find ourselves in the midst of another crypto wave....more
Recent and significant regulatory and legislative events in the digital asset space demonstrate the evolving and expanding approach by U.S. and international regulators to the burgeoning digital asset markets. These...more
A government inquiry can result in serious consequences for a company or individual. Our new podcast series, Voluntary Disclosure—brought to you by the lawyers in our investigations, enforcement, and white collar practice—is...more
On March 24, 2020, Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York granted the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”) an injunction to prevent Telegram Group Inc. and TON Issuer Inc. (collectively, “Telegram”)...more
It was a year filled with tantalizing tidbits and many loose ends. 2019 marked the 10th year since blockchain technology was released into the wild by its still unknown inventor, Satoshi Nakamoto, who mined the first bitcoin...more
On 31 July 2019 the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published final Guidance on the cryptoasset activities within its regulatory perimeter, in response to feedback on its January 2019 consultation paper and as trailed in...more
After a long wait, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has permitted a startup company to raise funds from the general public through a supervised security token offering (STO) under Reg A+ regulations....more
In June, two seemingly unrelated events took place: during the first week of June the SEC filed suit in federal court against the company Kik Interactive, which raised about 100 million dollars in the summer of 2017 through...more
U.S. Developments - Facebook Announces Formation of Calibra and Launch of Libra - On June 18, 2019, Facebook announced the launch of Libra, a new cryptocurrency designed to have a stable value and be widely accepted...more