According to the recent complaint filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Bittrex, the securities regulator insists that a few crypto-asset tokens have been offered and sold as investment contracts and securities. The news comes on the heels of the SEC designating several crypto assets as securities, including the case against Terraform Labs, which insists that LUNA and UST be sold as unregistered securities. In addition, a lawsuit filed against Kucoin by New York Attorney General Letitia James insists that ethereum is also an unregistered security.
Lawsuits against cryptocurrency exchanges highlight the lack of clarity on security versus putting commodities on the front line
This year, US regulators are designating a number of crypto assets as unregistered securities, and the allegations are buried in lawsuits against several crypto exchanges. Bittrex is the latest cryptocurrency exchange to be sued this year, following lawsuits against exchanges like Binance US, Kucoin, and Coinex, after the SEC accused Bittrex of operating an “unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.” In the Lawsuit against BittrexThe Securities and Exchange Commission insists on this dashALGO, TKN, NGC, and OMG are unregistered securities.
As an example of Page 35The SEC emphasized that “OMG investors have reasonable expectations of earnings based on the efforts of others” while discussing Project Omisego. The securities regulator claims that “material available at the time of[theinitialcoinoffering(ICO))indicatedthatthedevelopmentoftheplatformbytheOMGNetworkteamcouldleadtoprofitsforholdersofOMGtokens”Onpage37theSecuritiesandExchangeCommissiondiscussesdashAnd the regulator assures that “buyers dash invested in a joint venture.
Gary Gensler has promoted Algorand for years
Now that the SEC has ruled Algorand a surety, will he be hit with the same $1.26 million fine that he gave Kim Kardashian?pic.twitter.com/ucuOOVxqPS
– LilMoonLambo (@LilMoonLambo) April 17, 2023
The SEC explains how the Dash project has a treasury, Dash Control Group, and describes the Masternodes process. Another crypto asset classified as an unregistered security is ALGO, which the regulator claims was also sold as an investment contract. This particular crypto asset is made It was discussed on social media Because former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler named Algorand is “cool technology” and “something you can build an Uber on top of” which is to speak About Italian computer scientist Silvio Micali, founder of Algorand. However, despite the SEC chairman’s earlier comment, the SEC’s complaint insists that:
Investors in ALGO had reasonable expectations of earnings based on the efforts of others.
The regulator’s lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington, provides details about when crypto assets were made available on the Bittrex platform. The Securities and Exchange Commission explains that dash It was made available on Bittrex in 2014 but was temporarily removed on December 29, 2020, to be re-listed on September 1, 2021.” From the time it was displayed and continued through the relevant period, dash It was offered and sold as an investment contract, and therefore a security,” the SEC complaint adds.
Regulators are at loggerheads over the classification of Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies
The SEC has not provided an official list of crypto assets that are considered securities. References to such classifications continue to appear in court cases, such as July 2022 Insider trading status involving a Coinbase employee. The lawsuit cited crypto assets such as dfx finance (DFX), LCX (LCX), Powerledger (POWR) and six other digital currencies listed on the crypto trading platform. Luna (LUNA) and terrausd (UST) were identified as unregistered securities in the SEC v. Do Kwon case. Additionally, the lawsuits against Kucoin and Coinex filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James provide specific designation claims.
In the Coinex lawsuit, James and the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) asserted that the exchange failed to register as a securities and commodities broker and sold “the securities and commodities.” The securities and commodities mentioned in the OAG case include AMP, LUNA, LBC, and RLY. In the case against Kucoin, James and OAG stated that the second largest crypto-asset, ethereum (ETH), is an unregistered security.
In the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) lawsuit against Binance, the commodity regulator declared bitcoin, ethereum, binance usd, tether, and litecoin to be commodities. The discrepancies between the OAG and CFTC lawsuits highlight organizational lack of clarity In the system where two regulatory bodies have yet to decide what is a security and what is a commodity in terms of the thousands of crypto assets that exist today.
What do you think the future holds for cryptocurrency regulation? Do you think more clarity and consistency will emerge, or will the regulatory landscape remain fragmented and uncertain? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
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