US Court Ruling: Initial Coin Offerings Covered by Securities Law
A new ruling by a federal judge in New York has put Initial Coin Offerings under the umbrella of securities law, in a first-of-its-kind legal case against a man charged with promoting digital currencies that were supposedly backed by non-existent real estate and diamonds.
The first company charged by the SEC is TokenLot, a self-described ICO Superstore, that settled charges with the SEC as operating as an unregistered broker-dealer.
securities laws protect investors by subjecting broker-dealers and other gatekeepers to SEC oversight, including those offering ICOs and secondary trading in digital tokens.
Also, the SEC claims that more than 40% of the assets in his fund are digital securities, making his fund an unregistered investment company.
Dabney O’Riordan, the SEC’s Co-Chief of the Asset Management Unit, spoke about the rise of unregistered crypto hedge funds, saying:“Hedge funds seeking to ride the digital asset wave continue to proliferate.
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