The year 2018 was a busy one for the SEC in the digital asset space, with the agency cementing its role as the primary de facto regulator of crypto finance in the United States.
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Initial Coin Offerings
SEC Plans “Plain English” ICO Guidance
By Scott H. Kimpel on
Posted in Initial Coin Offerings, Regulatory
At a recent securities regulation conference, Bill Hinman, Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, indicated that the agency intends to release “plain English” guidance around the issue of whether an ICO is a security. The idea behind the plain English guidance appears to be to consolidate the SEC staff’s views into a single “how to” document for use by the lay person.
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Colorado and North Dakota Announce ICO Enforcement Actions
By Scott H. Kimpel on
State and provincial securities regulators across the US and Canada have been actively policing the marketplace for ICOs and security token offerings, supplementing efforts at the federal level undertaken by the SEC. Colorado and North Dakota are among the latest states to announce enforcement actions in the crypto space.
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Alibaba Wins Preliminary Injunction Against Developers of Cryptocurrency “AlibabaCoin” In Trademark Dispute
By Ian Moore on
Posted in Cryptocurrencies, Initial Coin Offerings
On Monday, October 22, 2018, Judge J. Paul Oetken of the Southern District of New York granted Alibaba Group Holding Limited’s motion for preliminary injunction in a trademark action against several foreign-based promoters and developers of a new cryptocurrency called “AlibabaCoin.” In doing so, the court considered several novel issues around personal jurisdiction and blockchain.
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Initial Coin Offerings: Can Securities Regulators Balance Market Growth and Investor Protection?
By Scott H. Kimpel on
Posted in Initial Coin Offerings, Regulatory
Hunton Andrews Kurth partner Scott Kimpel, chair of the Firm’s blockchain working group, recently participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Washington Legal Foundation regarding the latest legal issues associated with ICOs and security token offerings. …
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SEC’s Chief Accountant Discusses Digital Assets
By Scott H. Kimpel on
Posted in Initial Coin Offerings
Recently, in a wide-ranging speech, the SEC’s Chief Accountant, Wes Bricker, provided his thoughts on how the SEC accounting staff analyzes accounting issues surrounding digital assets and distributed ledger technology.
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A Day of Firsts
By Scott H. Kimpel on
On September 11, 2018, capital markets regulators announced a series of cases that are the first of their kind in the digital assets space.
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NASAA Updates Status of “Operation Cryptosweep”
By Scott H. Kimpel & Mayme Beth Donohue on
On August 28, 2018, the North American Securities Administrators Association published a press release with an update on the progress of the coordinated enforcement sweep of the ICO market dubbed “Operation Cryptosweep.”…
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SEC Brings Enforcement Case Involving “Airdrop” of Securities
By Scott H. Kimpel & Mayme Beth Donohue on
A recent settled SEC enforcement action against an ICO issuer and its promoter calls into question the viability of the “airdrop” model of distributing digital tokens to investors. Whether such a distribution model runs afoul of the federal securities laws has been the subject of much debate in recent months, and the SEC’s case provides additional insight into their analysis of the issue. …
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Switzerland Announces ICO Enforcement Action
By Scott H. Kimpel & Mayme Beth Donohue on
In a terse press release issued July 26, 2018, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (“FINMA”) announced that it has launched enforcement proceedings against an ICO issuer based on evidence that the company may have “breached financial market law.” According to FINMA, the proceedings focus in particular on possible breaches of Swiss banking law resulting from the potentially unauthorized acceptance of public deposits. FINMA noted that, in the context of its ICO, the subject company “accepted funds amounting to approximately one hundred million francs from more than 30,000 investors in return for issuing EVN tokens in a bond-like form.”
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