At a mutual fund industry conference held on December 3, 2019, Dalia Blass, director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Investment Management, previewed a new structure for registered mutual funds seeking to invest substantially in digital assets and related investments.
Continue Reading Senior SEC Official Discusses Digital Asset Fund

On October 28, 2019, staff in the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets provided a no-action letter to Paxos Trust Company, LLC permitting it to pilot a blockchain-based clearance and settlement platform for a limited number of U.S.-listed equity securities for 24 months. The staff’s action enables the further development and commercialization of a blockchain platform for clearing and settling U.S. securities trades.
Continue Reading SEC Staff Supports Blockchain Clearance and Settlement Platform

On September 24, 2019, the House Financial Services Committee held an oversight hearing entitled “Oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission: Wall Street’s Cop on the Beat” in which each of the five SEC commissioners were called as witnesses. While the hearing covered a wide range of issues related to securities regulation and enforcement, it also touched on a number of topics of particular interest to crypto and blockchain businesses, including the application of the securities laws to digital assets.
Continue Reading SEC Commissioners Testify About Digital Assets

On July 8, 2019, the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets and FINRA’s Office of General Counsel issued a Joint Statement on Broker-Dealer Custody of Digital Asset Securities. The Joint Statement discusses several provisions of the federal securities laws applicable to registered broker-dealers that may be implicated when such entities custody digital asset securities.
Continue Reading SEC and FINRA Staffs Release Guidance on Custody of Digital Asset Securities

As this short video explains, the “initial exchange offering,” or IEO, is the latest innovation in the offer and sale of cryptocurrencies. By partnering with a crypto exchange to aid in marketing and listing efforts, issuers engaging in an IEO hope to obtain better visibility and liquidity for their products. But like the ICOs they seek to replace, IEOs raise a host of potential issues under the US federal securities laws.
Continue Reading The Initial Exchange Offering

In a case being closely watched by the crypto community, a California federal judge reversed his earlier decision and, on reconsideration, issued a preliminary injunction against ICO issuer Blockvest LLC. Although the SEC has a high success rate in litigated cases, its action against Blockvest was notable because the judge initially declined to grant the SEC’s request for a preliminary injunction, then ruling that “at this stage, without full discovery and disputed issues of material facts, the Court cannot make a determination whether the BLV token offered to the 32 test investors was a ‘security.’” After reviewing new evidence, the judge subsequently reversed his position and found that Blockvest had indeed issued a security.
Continue Reading On Reconsideration, SEC Obtains Preliminary Injunction Against Blockvest ICO

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.
Continue Reading SEC Plans “Plain English” ICO Guidance

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.
Continue Reading Colorado and North Dakota Announce ICO Enforcement Actions