In February, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Terraform Labs and Mr. Do-Hyung Kwon with “fraud in the sale of securities.
The allegation is that Mr. Kwon used Tera, a “bearer security,” to defraud us of 50 trillion won ($50 billion).
In response, Mr. Kwon asked the court to dismiss the SEC’s case, saying that Tera is not a ‘security’ but a ‘currency’, but the federal court in Manhattan, New York, did not accept Mr. Kwon’s argument.
It said that cryptocurrencies should be considered securities and that the SEC’s case should proceed.
The court also rejected the New York District Court’s ruling that “Ripple is not a security,” which Mr. Kwon cited as evidence.
Three weeks ago, the New York court reversed itself, ruling that cryptocurrencies sold to retail investors are “commodities” that are not securities.
While the decision bolsters the SEC’s argument that cryptocurrency transactions must comply with securities laws, the fact remains that each cryptocurrency is designed differently, and the court’s decision is, of course, subject to change.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has also filed a lawsuit against Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, alleging it violated securities laws.
[Charlie Cooper/Former Director, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission: “It’s very difficult to predict exactly what’s going to happen with virtual currencies. But what I will say is that virtual currencies are here to stay.”]
It is not yet clear where Mr. Kwon, who was sentenced to four months in prison in Montenegro for using a fake passport, will face trial in South Korea, 카지노사이트넷 the United States, or elsewhere in connection with the Tera collapse.