On Dec. 22, 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Ripple Labs. The complaint essentially alleged that Ripple had engaged in a multi-year, sustained practice of illegally selling unregistered, non-exempt securities in the form of its XRP tokens. This complaint, having been filed on the last day of former SEC Chairman Jay Clayton’s tenure at the commission, led to a considerable volume of public commentary, as is not unusual for SEC litigation against major players in the crypto space. What is unusual about SEC versus Ripple is the reaction from a sizable segment of XRP …

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against California resident James Roland Jones in the first-ever enforcement action from the commission to target securities fraud on the darknet. According to the March 18 complaint, Jones is accused of accessing a darknet-based insider trading forum in late 2016 to seek material non-public information, or MNPI, on which to trade securities. He was unsuccessful in obtaining any useful MNPI from the forum, but in the spring of 2017, Jones allegedly began selling insider stock tips himself under the false pretext he was privy to MNPI obtained both from the forum …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission now has 45 days to deliver an initial decision on the VanEck Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund filing having officially published the company’s submission on its website on March 15. Now, the SEC has to approve, decline or extend the review period for the Bitcoin ETF filing within the 45-day window. The SEC can extend the deliberation window up to 249 days before delivering a final decision. The public also has a three-week period to submit comments on the SEC website. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, or CBOE, filed …

XRP tokenholders' attempts to insert themselves as third-party defendants in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Ripple may have come to an end. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres has denied a motion filed over the weekend on behalf of more than 6,000 XRP holders. The motion to intervene argued that the interests of tokenholders — in this case, the XRP Army — were not being adequately represented in the lawsuit against Ripple and its executives. John Deaton of Deaton Law Firm first filed the motion on Sunday, later claiming on the firm’s website that XRP holders had …

XRP tokenholders have attempted to insert themselves as third-party defendants in the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Ripple Labs. A motion to intervene was filed by John Deaton of Deaton Law Firm on Sunday on behalf of over 6,000 XRP holders. Deaton, himself an XRP holder, argued that the interests of tokenholders were not being adequately represented in the securities lawsuit against Ripple Labs and its executives. Deaton’s argument builds upon the refutation of any securities violations by Ripple Labs. Specifically, if XRP is not a security — as Ripple executives Bradley Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen claim …

In these hyper-partisan times, any bill that includes sponsors from both sides of the aisle is noteworthy. There is one pending now that is particularly important in the crypto space. On March 8, 2021, H.R. 1628, the Token Taxonomy Act of 2021, was introduced by representative Warren Davidson. It was co-sponsored by representatives Ted Budd, Darren Soto, Scott Perry and Josh Gottheimer. Terms of the Token Taxonomy Act of 2021 Among other provisions, the bill would exempt “digital tokens” from the definition of security, and it would also preempt inconsistent state regulation. Crypto assets would need to meet certain specified …

Ripple executives Bradley Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen have rejected demands by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to provide personal financial information as part of the ongoing investigation into a possible XRP sales securities violation. On March 11, lawyers for the Ripple Labs co-founders requested a protective order regarding their personal information and called for the court to quash subpoenas issued to six of the defendants’ banks. The banking institutions named specifically were SVB Financial Group, First Republic Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Silver Lake Bank, Silvergate Bank and Citibank. Lawyers for Garlinghouse and Larsen argued …

Hester Peirce of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission is well-known as a regulator who has shown consistent support for digital assets, so much so that her moniker "crypto mom" has become unshakeable. In a new interview with the Thinking Crypto podcast, Peirce reflected on the United States' regulatory approach to the asset class to date, arguing that, “I think we have missed the boat a bit on crypto. And I think a big piece of that comes from the failure to provide clarity in our rules.” She said that contrary to the persistent narrative that crypto is somehow …

Earlier this month, antivirus pioneer John McAfee was officially charged by the United States Department of Justice on seven counts of fraud and money laundering. These charges have been filed with respect to his activities in the crypto space from 2017 to 2020. It could be some time before McAfee actually has to face these charges in court, as he is currently being detained in Spain under a different warrant issued by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. While extradition from Spain to the United States should be easy, over the past few years the European Union has taken a much …

JPMorgan Chase has designed a new debt instrument that provides investors direct exposure to a basket of crypto-focused companies, according to a new filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. JPMorgan’s Cryptocurrency Exposure Basket (Mar 2021) is described as an “unequally weighted basket consisting of 11 Reference Stocks of U.S.-listed companies" that operate businesses directly and indirectly related to cryptocurrencies. The instrument allocates 20% to MicroStrategy, the data analytics firm with 91,064 BTC on its balance sheet. It also provides direct exposure to Square (18%) and Riot Blockchain (15%), two companies with significant exposure to Bitcoin. …

Editor’s note Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the final installment of Law Decoded, at least with yours truly at the helm. Though someone may pick this newsletter back up at some point, there are no plans to do so now. Taking advantage of the rose-tinted glasses or maybe the graduation goggles that are in effect for this final newsletter, I will be shaking up the format. As last week’s Law Decoded focused on a few long-standing stories in crypto, this week, I wanted to get thematic. As I will no longer be guiding you through the weekly changes in crypto …

Though seemingly coming from nowhere for many, the themes behind the Reddit-fueled r/Wallstreetbets pump of GameStop feel familiar. Watching it unfold, I tried to figure out just why it had captured my interest to such a degree, and, to me, it was a spillover into the traditional markets of some pervasive themes driving crypto. Despite some competition in the narrative, I view the motivating force — and by it, I mean the social media-fueled spread of the message that drew enough widespread interest to have an impact in the market — behind the GME pump as analogous with what, at …