Episode 286 -- Matt Stankiewicz on the Ripple Decision and Celsius CEO Indictment
Blue Sky Laws: Defending State-Level Securities Violations
The Justice Insiders: The Administrative State is Not Your Friend - A Conversation with Professor Richard Epstein
Four Decision Points in SEC Securities Investigations
Crypto Enforcement Is Here, and Always Has Been
Cryptocurrency: The Regulator’s Perspective
Investment Management Roundtable Discussion – Regulatory and Enforcement Update
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
The number of securities class action settlements declined 21% relative to 2022, following the 15-year high set in 2022, according to a new report released today by Cornerstone Research. Despite the decline in settlement...more
On February 7, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) announced charges and a related cease-and-desist order (the “Order”) against TradeStation Crypto, Inc. (“TradeStation”) for failing to register the...more
Last year, the Court in SEC v. Terraform Labs suggested, by denying the defendants’ motion to dismiss, that the sale of a digital asset to the public on a secondary market may constitute a security. Now, the Court has...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently brought its first two enforcement actions against issuers of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), resulting in cease-and-desist orders, penalties and other remedies, finding that the...more
Two SEC commissioners dissented and urged the Commission to provide further guidance on non-fungible tokens ("NFTs")....more
In a published settlement of the charges on August 28, 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) stated that non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) issued by Impact Theory, LLC (“Impact”) were “securities” under US...more
Summary - The SEC’s focus on the crypto industry expanded this week to include non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In its first NFT-enforcement action, the SEC settled with Impact Theory, a media and entertainment company, over...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
Earlier this month, a federal trial court judge issued an opinion ruling on whether sales of a digital token, XRP, constituted a “security” for purposes of federal securities laws. Some headlines reporting the ruling have...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued Coinbase, Inc., alleging the crypto assets Coinbase made available for trading on its exchange met the definition of “securities.” Because Coinbase did not register the assets...more
In the span of two days, June 5 and June 6, 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) commenced proceedings against the largest crypto asset exchange in the world, Binance.com; its affiliated US exchange,...more
On the heels of recent legal setbacks and challenges for NFT collections offered by Dapper Labs and DraftKings, the New York Attorney General (NYAG) filed suit in New York state court against the parent companies of...more
On March 9, 2023, a putative class action was filed against DraftKings Inc. for alleged violations of federal securities laws in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The class, if certified, will include...more
In July of 2022, the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) each alleged insider trading violations against a former Coinbase employee Ishan Wahi (“Ishan”), his brother...more
Like Zeus unleashing the Kraken in Clash of the Titans, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has unleashed the Kraken (not the digital asset company) to unleash havoc on Genesis Global Capital LLC (Genesis) and...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
While the blockchain crypto community is processing the latest round of “crypto contagion,” potentially lost in the busy news week was a significant legal development regarding what digital assets qualify as securities under...more
Earlier this year, on February 14, 2022, the SEC issued to BlockFi Lending LLC (“BlockFi”), a crypto lending platform, a cease-and-desist order (the “Order”). See BlockFi Lending LLC. The Order prohibits BlockFi from engaging...more
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are digital assets that are sharply rising in popularity. Every day, individuals are launching new NFT projects with similar or new features compared to prior NFT projects. NFTs are attractive to...more
STOs and NFTs - STOs stands for “security token offerings.” They involve an offering of digitalized securities such as stocks, bonds, or other token and coin projects. The difference between an IPO and an STO is that STOs...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has not hesitated to conclude that crypto assets are securities subject to the Securities Act of 1933, but with BlockFi, the SEC went a step further and, for the first time with...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
Delaware Court of Chancery Dismisses Stockholder Derivative Suit for Failure to Allege Demand Futility; Connecticut Jury Finds for Defendant in Crypto Currency Fraud Case; Northern District of Illinois Allows Claims...more