Background and Scope The Assessment was drafted by Treasury’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (“TFFC”), in consultation with multiple U.S. agencies, including the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State; the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”); Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). The TFFC also … Continue Reading
In 2016, crypto startup LBRY launched the LBRY network and the LBRY protocol, described by LBRY as a decentralized content sharing and publishing protocol that supports the creation of community-run digital marketplaces. The same year, LBRY offered and sold native LBC tokens to the public for the purported purpose of allowing LBRY users to compensate … Continue Reading
On Sept. 16, 2022, the White House released a Fact Sheet providing key findings and action items arising from the nine reports addressing digital assets that have been submitted to the president to date consistent with the EO. The Fact Sheet provides a list of various directives and initiatives that the Administration plans to take … Continue Reading
On Aug. 10, 2022, just days after OFAC issued sanctions against virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, Dutch authorities arrested the protocol’s alleged developer. In a press release, the Treasury Department alleged that since 2019, Tornado Cash had been used to launder more than $7 billion in cryptocurrency, including more than $455 million stolen in the … Continue Reading
Significant parallel actions commenced this week by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) bring crypto fraud enforcement into the spotlight, with the SEC alleging that multiple tokens listed on Coinbase are securities. In its first insider trading case of “crypto asset securities,” the SEC charged a former Coinbase product manager, his … Continue Reading
On May 3, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the expansion of its Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (the Unit f/k/a the Cyber Unit) to 50 staff members, nearly double the Unit’s former size, including supervisors, investigative staff attorneys, trial counsel and fraud analysts. The Unit is a group within the Division of … Continue Reading
On March 9, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets (EO) and the White House released a corresponding fact sheet summarizing related key policy objectives. As discussed in more detail here, this is a landmark moment for the U.S. cryptocurrency market. … Continue Reading
In a speech before the Aspen Security Forum on August 3, 2021, Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC” or “Commission”) Chair Gary Gensler urged lawmakers to provide him with the power to police cryptocurrency trading, referring to it as the “Wild West.”[1] While he noted that the views he was sharing were his own and not … Continue Reading
On Dec. 22, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or the Commission) filed an action against Ripple Labs Inc. (Ripple or the Company) and two of its executives, alleging that they violated Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (Securities Act) by raising over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing securities … Continue Reading
The Telegram case is arguably the most important case of 2020 involving the legal classification of blockchain-based digital assets. Because it is often cost-prohibitive for companies to challenge the government in court, the Telegram litigation offered a unique opportunity for the parties to present arguments on several complex legal issues. Given the lack of judicial … Continue Reading
On Sept. 30, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) motion for sum mary judgment against Kik Interactive Inc. (Kik) and denied Kik’s cross-motion for summary judgment. As we previously reported, the SEC challenged Kik’s compliance with the federal securities laws in … Continue Reading
On March 24, Judge P. Kevin Castel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) motion for a preliminary injunction in the closely followed Telegram case. The preliminary injunction continues to prevent the delivery by Telegram Group Inc. and TON Issuer (collectively, Telegram) of … Continue Reading