On July 15, 2019, the N.Y. Department of Financial Services (the “DFS”) announced that it granted virtual currency licenses to two subsidiaries of Seed CX Ltd. as part of its supervisory authority under the so-called “Bitlicense Law“, bringing the total to four since DFS Superintendent Linda Lacewell became head in February. Seed Digital Commodities Market… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Cryptocurrencies
SEC Claims ICO Is Unregistered Securities Offering
On June 4, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) filed a claim in the District Court for the Southern District of New York alleging that the Initial Coin Offering (the “ICO”) of Kik Interactive Inc. (“Kik”) was an illegal unregistered securities offering. From May 2017 to September 2017, Kik raised about $100 million through… Read more »
FinCEN Imposes Fine for Failure to Register as Money Services Business Under Bank Secrecy Act
On April 18, 2019, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) imposed a $35,350 civil money penalty on Eric Powers for failure to register as a Money Services Business under the Bank Secrecy Act. Mr. Powers was a peer-to-peer exchanger of bitcoin, a digital currency, for nearly two years. FinCEN has taken the position that such… Read more »
SEC Framework for Analysis of Digital Assets; No-Action Relief for Certain Tokens
On April 3, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) staff released a “Framework for ‘Investment Contract’ Analysis of Digital Assets” setting forth its current approach to determining when a digital asset is a security and when it is not. The Framework does not add significantly to the SEC’s prior actions and statements in… Read more »
SEC Cease and Desist Against Alleged Unlicensed Cryptocurrency Exchange
On November 8, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) published a press release announcing that it had settled its first cease and desist enforcement action concerning a cryptocurrency trading platform, against Zachary Coburn, the founder of EtherDelta. The SEC has alleged that EtherDelta was an unregistered national securities exchange in that it provided a… Read more »
SEC Acts Against Cryptocurrency Companies
On October 11, 2018, Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), the SEC issued a press release announcing that it had obtained an emergency court order to stop an Initial Coin Offering (an “ICO”) by Blockvest LLC and its founder, Reginald Buddy Ringgold, III. Among other things, the company claimed that the ICO had been approved by the… Read more »
Financial Stability Board Suggests New Asset Class for Crypto-Assets
On July 16, 2018, the international Financial Stability Board published a report in which it proposed that a new asset class be established under Basel III for crypto assets. The report was done for the G20, and made clear that the FSB does not see crypto-assets as posing a material risk to global financial stability at… Read more »