Podcast: Is Cryptocurrency a Security (like an orange grove)?
Episode 286 -- Matt Stankiewicz on the Ripple Decision and Celsius CEO Indictment
From Station Wagon to Lamborghini: One CypherPunk’s Journey from Cryptoanarchy to Solana Cross-Chain NFT Innovations
Wax Studios
Summer Enforcement Action Review; Raising Money in a Pandemic - Investment Management Roundtable Discussion
Theoretical No More: Blockchain Technology, Cryptocurrencies and the Tax, Legal and Business Implications
As the end of summer approaches, litigation in the digital asset industry has remained hot. In the SEC’s cases against various exchanges, ongoing discovery fights are starting to play out in court filings, and one can expect...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
In the first episode of the CryptoCounsel at Wiley, hosts Josh Simmons and Frank Scaduto discuss the evolving landscape of cryptocurrency regulation, focusing on recent disputes and the challenges posed by the SEC's...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
On September 7, 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the settlement of three separate enforcement actions in the decentralized finance (DeFi) space: namely, concerning the Opyn protocol and its...more
On August 28, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) charged Impact Theory, LLC (“Impact Theory”), a media and entertainment company headquartered in Los Angeles, with conducting an unregistered securities...more
The Blockchain Bi-Weekly presented by the Polsinelli Blockchain+ team is a rundown of some of the key stories in the Web3, blockchain and crypto ecosystems curated by our attorneys navigating the intersections of code, smart...more
Matt Stankiewicz, Partner at The Volkov Law Group, rejoins the podcast to review the recent Ripple decision by District Judge Torres at the Southern District of New York and the recent indictment of Celsius Networks' CEO. On...more
U.S. Fintech Firm Launches Stablecoin; Circle Launches ‘Programmable Wallets’ - A major U.S. fintech and payments firm recently announced the launch of a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin, PYUSD. According to a press...more
Specifically, the SEC wants a change to persuade the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit – now, not later – of its view that Torres got it wrong when she determined that the company's offer and sale of its XRP token...more
Federal District Court Enters Default Judgment Based on NFT Service of Process - A federal district court judge in Florida entered a $2.2 million default judgment against a defendant on whom the judge previously authorized...more
Key Point - Just shy of three weeks after Judge Torres held that the digital asset XRP is not itself a security,1 Judge Rakoff held that the SEC had adequately pled that certain digital assets, such as the UST and LUNA...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
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
As of June 6, the SEC has brought 24 cryptocurrency enforcement actions between litigations and administrative proceedings. The number of cryptocurrency enforcement actions brought by the SEC in 2023 is advancing at a record...more
A bifurcated decision in a highly anticipated digital assets enforcement action may not provide the clarity that market participants want or need. On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the...more
A bipartisan bill introduced in the U.S. Senate last week seeks “to bring crypto assets within the regulatory perimeter” by granting oversight responsibility to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for most forms...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) is paying considerable attention to the world of cryptocurrency (“crypto”). According to the SEC website, the SEC has brought more than 50 enforcement actions against crypto...more
It’s the Transaction, Not the Token. Issuers cannot offer or sell securities without registering them with the SEC under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 or finding a valid exemption from registration. XRP is the...more
On July 13, 2023, Judge Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a much-awaited summary judgment decision in SEC v. Ripple Labs, Inc., No. 1:20-cv-10832-AT-SN (S.D.N.Y. July 13, 2023),...more
In a one-two punch earlier this month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought successive actions against two of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges – the first blows in what will likely be...more
Washington is in a period of closely divided government. The Democrats have the White House; the Republicans have a bare majority in the House; and Democrats have a bare majority in the Senate. In practice, this means policy...more
On March 29, the SEC filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against a cryptocurrency trading platform and its executives for allegedly failing to register as a national securities...more
The Digital Asset SEC Timeline serves as an interactive compilation of select SEC guidance, enforcement actions, and speeches relating to the application of the federal securities laws to digital assets. Beginning with the...more
On February 9, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) charged Kraken with offering and selling Kraken’s Staking Program – its staking-as-a-service product – as an unregistered security. Kraken, more...more