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
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
On November 20, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) instituted a civil enforcement action against Kraken, a major U.S. cryptocurrency exchange. The SEC alleged Kraken operated as an unregistered broker, dealer,...more
In April 2023, the SEC re-proposed amendments to Exchange Act Rule 3b-16 to expand the definition of what it means to be an exchange. When the SEC initially proposed these amendments in January 2022, there were zero direct...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
A US court recently handed down a landmark ruling addressing the question of whether the crypto token XRP falls under the definition of “security”. The US court ruled that the same crypto token may be classified differently...more
On July 13th, Judge Analisa Torres of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered an order that was quickly celebrated by the crypto world (SEC v. Ripple Labs, Inc., No. 20CIV10832ATSN;...more
On July 13, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued its highly anticipated summary judgment decision in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) action against Ripple Labs, Inc....more
Ripple Labs (“Ripple”) was one of the first companies to emerge in the crypto space and is now among the first to secure a win against the SEC. In 2020—nearly a decade after Ripple created its digital token, XRP—the SEC sued...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
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
Even before the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX empire, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was paying increasing attention to the market for cryptocurrencies. Back in June, the Chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler,...more
This year had already seen an uptick in federal enforcement activity focused on digital assets with the expansion of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit (see our prior client alert on that expansion and its impact here)...more
The cryptocurrency and blockchain industry has developed over the past decade with a large and increasingly glaring void: What regulations ultimately will apply and who will regulate the space? Much regulatory focus to date...more
There is no love lost between the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the crypto industry with tensions escalating over the past year. So it seems fitting that on Valentine’s Day, the SEC brought a...more
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce continues to be one of the most vocal persons in leadership positions at federal regulators who are promoting innovation in digital currency and the blockchain....more