Our colleague Ernest Badway writes about a recent decision in a federal criminal case rejecting the defendant’s argument that there was no securities fraud because he was selling digital tokens. The case involved charges that the defendant had defrauded investors in an initial coin offering. Ernie writes that “[o]ne of the big takeaways from this case is that courts, at least, initially, seem to be reluctant to claim crypto instruments are not securities. It almost appears that, like everyone else, courts such as the one in the EDNY are looking for more guidance, and are reluctant to make any major pronouncements about the status of such items as digital tokens.” You can read Ernie’s article, which is posted to the Securities Compliance Sentinel blog, here.

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