Initial Coin Offerings

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In the latest development in the ongoing dispute between the SEC and Telegram Group Inc. (Telegram), Judge P. Kevin Castel of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in a March 24, 2020 opinion granted the SEC’s motion for preliminary injunction to prevent Telegram from distributing…

The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an alert on January 14, 2020, warning investors of initial exchange offerings and the potential for fraud. This follows the 2020 examination priorities the SEC released at the beginning of the year, which touched on virtual currencies and digital assets,…

On February 20, 2019, the SEC announced that it settled charges against Gladius Network LLC (“Gladius”) for failing to register non-exempt offers and sales of securities in violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act. While the SEC has previously settled charges relating to unregistered ICOs, this is one of few occasions since its 2017 DAO Report that the SEC refrained from imposing civil monetary penalties for an ICO that it determined violated the registration requirements of the federal securities laws.

The SEC recently announced its settlement of charges against boxer Floyd Mayweather and producer DJ Khaled for their failure to disclose payments they received for promoting Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) on their social media accounts.

The federal securities laws contain an “anti-touting provision,” which regulates paid promotions of securities offerings. Specifically, Section 17(b) of the Securities Act of 1933 makes it unlawful for a person to “publish, give publicity to, or circulate any notice…or communication which, though not purporting to offer a security for sale, describes such security for a consideration received or to be received…without fully disclosing the receipt, whether past or prospective, of such consideration and the amount thereof.” Importantly, the provision applies even to those not directly offering a security for sale. The SEC’s orders instituting cease-and-desist proceedings against Mayweather and Khaled both cited violations of Section 17(b).

According to the charges, Mayweather failed to disclose $300,000 he received from three ICO issuers. He received $100,000 from Centra Tech Inc. for posting on his social media accounts that “Centra’s…ICO starts in a few hours. Get yours before they sell out, I got mine and as usual I’m going to win big with this one!” Mayweather promoted ICOs on his social media accounts a number of other times and even dubbed himself “Floyd Crypto Mayweather” in one post (not to be confused with his usual moniker, Floyd “Money” Mayweather). Khaled also received $50,000 from Centra for posts calling Centra an “ultimate winner” and a “game changer.” Centra has been the subject of its own SEC scrutiny, with the SEC filing a civil action against Centra’s founders and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filing corresponding criminal charges.

For digitally savvy investors itching to know whether U.S. courts would treat crypto-tokens as securities subject to the regulatory requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, the wait is over—sort of. The first federal judge to decide the issue in the class-action context landed on the same side as the SEC did back in 2017, finding that the virtual tokens in the case could be characterized as securities. We discussed the SEC’s 2017 report in a previous article. See Margaret A. Dale and Mark D. Harris, The SEC Concludes that Digital Tokens May Be Securities, NYLJ, Aug. 8, 2017.

On June 25, 2018, Magistrate Judge Andrea M. Simonton of the Southern District of Florida issued this cutting-edge opinion in Rensel v. Centra Tech. Her Report and Recommendation (R&R) considered a motion for a temporary restraining order to safeguard the proceeds from an initial coin offering (ICO). The underlying shareholder class action alleged that Centra Tech, a Florida-based technology start-up company, and several of its founders and executives, had violated various provisions of the Securities Act. To reach her decision, Judge Simonton analyzed whether the tokens Centra Tech offered during the course of its ICO were securities for purposes of the Securities Act (despite the defendants conceding the point for purposes of the motion).

On May 29, the SEC announced that it had secured injunctive relief halting an allegedly “ongoing fraud” involving an unregistered, non-exempt ICO that raised as much as $21 million in cryptoassets.

The SEC’s complaint charges Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services, Inc., EHI Internetwork and Systems Management, Inc. and Michael Stollery, (collectively, the “Titanium defendants”) with fraud in connection with the purchase, offer or sale of securities under Sections 10 and 17 of the Securities Exchange Act and the unregistered offer and sale of securities under Section 5 of the Securities Act. 

A class action lawsuit was filed on May 3rd against Ripple Labs Inc.—a fintech startup that controls the third-largest cryptocurrency in the world—and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, alleging that Ripple sold unregistered, non-exempt securities in violation of federal and California state securities laws.

In their complaint, Plaintiffs characterized the sale of XRP (Ripple’s native token) as “a scheme by Defendants to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through the unregistered sale of XRP” and “what is essentially a never-ending initial coin offering (ICO).” In addition to attorney fees, costs of the suit, and punitive damages, the plaintiffs also request a declaration from the court that the sale of XRP is an unregistered securities sale and to enjoin defendants from further violating securities laws.