Popular, Digital Assets, Investment Contract

U.S. SEC Issues Statement on Stablecoins

Morrison & Foerster LLP on 4/9/2025

On April 4, 2025, the staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or “Commission”) Division of Corporation Finance (“Staff”) issued a statement on stablecoins (the “Stablecoin Statement”), outlining the Staff’s...more

Top 5 SEC Enforcement Developments for August 2024

Morrison & Foerster LLP on 9/25/2024

Each month, we publish a roundup of the most important SEC enforcement developments for busy in-house lawyers and compliance professionals. This month, we examine: •The SEC’s case against crypto firm Kraken is permitted to...more

Ruling for SEC Clears Path for Continued Litigation in SEC v. Coinbase

Latham & Watkins LLP on 4/18/2024

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

SEC Finds NFT to Be a Security in Landmark Action

Ballard Spahr LLP on 9/5/2023

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

Ripple and Terraform Labs: Two New York District Courts Address the Status of Certain Crypto Assets as Securities

Jones Day on 8/22/2023

In Short - The Situation: Recently, two judges in Southern District of New York were required to apply the Howey test in separate cases to decide whether sales of certain crypto assets were investment contracts, and thus...more

Client Alert: Ripple, and Terra, and Coinbase, Oh My!

Jenner & Block on 8/14/2023

Three federal judges in the Southern District of New York sit at the center of the long-running battle between the SEC and the crypto industry, overseeing cases that may eventually bring clarity to the industry. After two...more

A Ripple of Doubt

Holland & Knight LLP on 8/11/2023

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

Judge Rakoff puts the Ripple Party on Ice as the Crypto Community and SEC Ponder their Next Moves

Mintz - Securities Litigation Viewpoints on 8/8/2023

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

Crypto as a Security – Applying the Howey Test

Barnea Jaffa Lande & Co. on 8/7/2023

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

Not Today, Gary: Court Says XRP is Not a Security

Lowenstein Sandler LLP on 7/19/2023

On July 13, Judge Analisa Torres, district judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, issued a substantial order (the Order) on cross motions for summary judgment in the U.S. Securities...more

U.S. District Court Signals That In Certain Cases, NFTs May Qualify as Securities

BakerHostetler on 3/7/2023

Dapper Labs was founded in 2018 shortly after the debut of its first NFT collection, “CryptoKitties,” which was so successful it created a bottleneck of transactions on the decentralized Ethereum Network. Seeking faster...more

SEC v. Ripple: Approaching Judgment Day

Latham & Watkins LLP on 1/20/2023

While a conclusion to the much-hyped case may be approaching, market participants should be wary of doomsday prognostications. As a new year begins, the digital assets industry is still enduring a deep and widespread crypto...more

NFT Lawyer – 5 Things You Must Consider Before Hiring

Oberheiden P.C. on 5/3/2022

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are digital assets that are sharply rising in popularity. Every day, individuals are launching new NFT projects with similar or new features compared to prior NFT projects. NFTs are attractive to...more

Security Token Offerings (STOs) For NFTs? – 5 Things You Should Know Before You Take the Plunge

Oberheiden P.C. on 3/31/2022

STOs and NFTs - STOs stands for “security token offerings.” They involve an offering of digitalized securities such as stocks, bonds, or other token and coin projects. The difference between an IPO and an STO is that STOs...more

A Brief Overview of the SEC’s Guidance on Cryptocurrencies in the Context of the Commission’s Enforcement Action Against Ripple...

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP on 2/4/2022

A key question for any company considering the issuance of cryptocurrency is whether that digital asset will be treated by regulators as a security, like BP stock, or a commodity, like Bitcoin. In 2019, the Securities and...more

Today's Popular Updates › Digital Assets › Investment Contract