On November 21, 2019, Mark S. Scott, a former partner at law firm Locke Lord LLP, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with his work for OneCoin Ltd. Mr. Scott was found guilty following…
On October 6, 2019, alleged cryptocurrency investors filed a putative class action complaint in the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that Bitfinex, Tether, and other defendants coordinated to manipulate the price of Bitcoin and disrupted the cryptocurrency market. The complaint brought claims for…
On September 30, 2019, the SEC issued an order instituting cease-and-desist proceedings pursuant to Section 8A of the Securities Act of 1933, making findings, and imposing a cease-and-desist order with respect to Block.one in connection with an ICO allegedly conducted in violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities…
On August 28, 2019, the Superior Court of California for the County of San Francisco granted the motion of Tezos Stiftung (“Tezos”) to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s claims. The putative class action complaint alleged that Tezos violated Sections 12(a) and 15 of…
On August 12, 2019, the SEC issued an order instituting cease-and-desist proceedings pursuant to Section 8A of the Securities Act of 1933, making findings, and imposing a cease-and-desist order with respect to SimplyVital Health, Inc. (“SimplyVital”) in connection with token sales allegedly conducted in violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c)…
YouNow, Inc. (File No. 024-11018) On July 11, 2019, one day after the qualification of Blockstack’s offering, the SEC qualified the second offering of digital tokens under Regulation A+. YouNow, Inc. sought to offer an aggregate of 178,000,000 “Props Tokens” at a deemed price of $0.1369 per token in (1)…
On Apr. 11, 2019, the plan d’action pour la croissance et la transformation des entreprises (Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation act), also known as Loi PACTE, has introduced in French law the possibility for issuers of initial coin offering (ICOs) to apply for an optional visa from the…
On May 9, 2019, Commissioner Hester Peirce of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) expressed concern that the SEC is moving too slowly in providing meaningful guidance for the digital token industry. Commissioner Peirce acknowledged that the SEC has provided some direction to date by: (1) issuing the DAO…
On April 24, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss a complaint alleging that the controlling shareholders of FLiK, a company designed to create an online distribution platform for entertainment projects, violated Sections 12(a) and…
Bittrex, Inc. (“Bittrex”) is a US-based company that owns and operates one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Bittrex’s digital asset exchange platform allows approximately 1.67 million global users to trade over 200 cryptocurrencies. Bittrex offers two separate platforms, Bittrex and Bittrex International. The former is designed for use by…