📣 US Court Sides with SEC in Another Crypto Case
posted 4 Mar 2024
A US court has declared that trading certain cryptocurrencies on the secondary market amounts to dealing in securities, thereby falling under the purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Judge Tana Lin delivered this verdict while presiding over an insider trading case involving acquaintances of employees at the crypto exchange Coinbase.
Judge Lin pointed to the behavior of issuers who aggressively marketed their own tokens and "fostered expectations of asset value increase" as key evidence. She also noted the developers' keenness to quickly access the secondary cryptocurrency market to ease sales to ordinary users.
Each issuer continued to make such representation regarding the profitability of their tokens even as the tokens were traded on secondary markets,Lin remarked.
This decision sets a precedent, marking the first time a federal court has classified secondary sales of cryptocurrencies as securities transactions. Given the myriad lawsuits across the country and the variety of judicial opinions, the debate over the legal status of cryptocurrencies is anticipated to escalate to the US Supreme Court shortly.
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