Blockchain Tokens and Initial Coin Offerings: New Year, New Perspective
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Key takeaways:
- Recent statements by the SEC Chairman, along with recent SEC enforcement actions against issuers of tokens in ICOs, provide a ripe opportunity to revisit and assess the SEC’s actions in the cryptocurrency and ICO space in the past year.
- While the SEC continues to indicate that each case should be evaluated based on all of its facts and circumstances, the circumstances that allow an ICO issuer to conclude that the tokens are not securities are, as a practical matter, narrower now than previously believed.
- The SEC’s recent enforcement actions reached the right results given the particular facts at issue, but we hope that more nuanced cases will provide the SEC with an opportunity to clarify its views and create more refined guidelines for market professionals in the blockchain space.