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
On August 7, 2024, nearly four years after the SEC filed its complaint alleging Ripple sold XRP in unregistered securities transactions in violation of Section 5 of the Securities Act, the district court issued its final...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
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
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
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
In granting the SEC’s motion for summary judgment, a federal court ruled that sales of LBC tokens were securities transactions. On November 7, 2022, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) prevailed in a motion for...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) has been accused of “regulation by enforcement” when it comes to the standard for determining whether a crypto token is a security. Part of this stems from the fact...more
On January 8, 2021, Judge Richard Seeborg of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an Order denying a motion to dismiss in S.E.C. v. NAC Foundation, LLC, et al. The U.S. Securities &...more
Regulators once again offered piecemeal guidance, while focusing on risks and enforcement. Meanwhile, innovation and institutional adoption took off. Last year, Latham & Watkins sounded a hopeful note that 2020 would provide...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
The milestone fund structure portends a reduced role for broker-dealers, who may be sidelined by innovators unwilling to wait for regulators. On July 6, 2020, asset management firm Arca announced that the US Securities and...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 July 8, 2019, the staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) Division of Trading and Markets and the staff of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) issued a joint statement outlining...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 the inaugural issue of Investment Management Update, we summarize regulatory, litigation and industry developments from February 2019 to May 2019 impacting the investment management sector....more
On April 24, 2019, Skadden hosted a webinar titled “The Current State of Cryptocurrency Enforcement and Securities Litigation.” The presented topics largely focused on the SEC’s evolving regulatory approach to cryptocurrency...more
Earlier this month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) provided additional guidance on digital assets, which include “tokens” and “coins.” The SEC’s Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (“FinHub”)...more
In this issue, we examine the release of the much-anticipated Strategic Hub for Innovation and Financial Technology (FinHub) guidance for analyzing how U.S. federal securities laws apply to initial coin offerings, the...more
Over the past two years, prices for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets have experienced extreme gains and declines, while billions of dollars have been raised through Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”). In this dynamic...more