On February 27, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission formally abandoned its enforcement action against Coinbase. ...more
3/5/2025
/ Coinbase ,
Compliance ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Howey ,
Investment ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Regulation
After years of refusing to give clear answers on the issue of which tokens are securities, the SEC has finally provided some clarity, at least with respect to meme coins: they are not securities. Well, actually, not quite;...more
Just how crypto-friendly will the new administration be? Apparently, plenty. Today, SEC Acting Chairman Mark T. Uyeda announced the launch of a task force dedicated to developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework...more
On January 7, 2025, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam announced that he will be stepping down as Chairman on January 20th and leaving the Commission entirely on February 7th. Just before this announcement, Behnam told the Financial...more
Elections, as they say, have consequences. That bit of political wisdom certainly will be true again this time around—our president-elect has been announcing appointees for cabinet positions that are bound to bring about...more
11/27/2024
/ CFTC ,
China ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Economic Sanctions ,
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) ,
Investment Adviser ,
Investment Funds ,
Jurisdiction ,
National Security ,
Popular ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Russia ,
Securities ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Tariffs ,
Trade Expansion Act of 1962
Crypto tax policy continues to move forward, domestically and internationally. Domestically, the IRS seeks comments on the new Form 1099-DA. Internationally, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (“OECD”)...more
10/17/2024
/ Criminal Investigations ,
Cross-Border ,
Cryptoassets ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
FACTA ,
Income Taxes ,
IRS ,
OECD ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Tax Crimes
The Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) recently finalized Treasury Regulations (the “Final Regulations”) and published two notices and a Revenue Procedure (the “Transitional Guidance”) for broker reporting of certain...more
8/29/2024
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
Brokers ,
Digital Assets ,
Fair Market Value ,
Final Rules ,
IRS ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Popular ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Stablecoins ,
Tax Code ,
Tax Planning
On August 7, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York permanently enjoined Ripple from future violations of Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933—that is, from the unregistered offer and sale of...more
On May 23, 2024, the SEC approved listing of eight ETH ETPs. The order approved the applications to list the ARK 21Shares Ethereum ETF, the Fidelity Ethereum Fund, the Grayscale Ethereum Trust, the Bitwise Ethereum ETF, the...more
On March 8, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded a District Court decision that dismissed all claims by plaintiff crypto investors against Binance, an international electronic exchange...more
3/21/2024
/ Appeals ,
Blue Sky Laws ,
Broker-Dealer ,
Class Action ,
Crypto Exchanges ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Foreign Jurisdictions ,
Investors ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Token Sales
As lawyer, I pride myself of my ability to wordsmith; like most lawyers, I cannot resist marking up a draft even if it is only just stylistic changes. But sometimes, there is just no way to improve on someone else’s words....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 January 2024, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) reported a staggering rate of potentially inaccurate and misleading information in broker-dealer crypto asset communications. The Regulator revealed that...more
The New Year is upon us, which means plenty of news stories looking back at blockchain events in 2023, such as this one (From NFTs to XRP: the biggest crypto stories of 2023 (Axios)), this one (The Year that Cryptocurrency...more
On Sept 13, 2023, for its second non-fungible token (NFT) related enforcement action, the SEC issued a settled Order against Stoner Cats 2, LLC (“SC2”) for SC2’s offer and sale of 10,320 NFTs linked to images of characters...more
Three days before Christmas 2020, the SEC served Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives with a lawsuit. How is that for a present under the tree? As the SKrypto Blog reported at the time, the main issue was whether XRP, a...more
7/19/2023
/ Coinbase ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Digital Assets ,
Howey ,
Ripple ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Litigation ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations ,
Sellers ,
Token Sales ,
Unregistered Securities
In honor of the 2023 MLB All-Star game, Seward and Kissel presents the first ever Howey All-Star Team. The lineup below imagines the seminal federal cases interpreting the meaning of the term “investment contract” in U.S....more
On June 5th and 6th, 2023 the SEC filed complaints against Binance and Coinbase, respectively, for acting as an exchange, broker, and a clearing agency without registering accordingly as a result of offering tokens and...more
On April 17, 2023, the SEC sued Bittrex for acting as an unregistered securities exchange, broker-dealer, and clearing agency. Only a few weeks ago, the company announced it would exit the U.S. due to “continued regulatory...more
...On March 22, 2023, Coinbase, Inc. received a Wells notice from the SEC.
A Wells notice is the means by which the staff of the Enforcement Division informs someone it has decided to recommend the Commission bring an...more
The FDIC generally shuts down failing institutions on Friday after the close of business to minimize disruptions to depositors....more
Just days after a flurry of crypto-related enforcement actions, the SEC voted to propose the new “Safeguarding Rule” under the Advisers Act, a whopper of a rule proposal which would amend and replace the current Custody Rule...more
“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin -
Living in the world of crypto is almost always eventful, but some times are more eventful than others....more
In a long-anticipated decision, on September 8, 2022, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (the “Second Circuit”) vacated the judgment of the Southern District of New York (the “District Court”) in, In re...more
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Tornado Cash. As a result, all property and interests in property of Tornado Cash that is in the United States or in the...more