Telegram Messenger Inc. has been ordered to pay nearly $625,000 worth of legal fees to a small cryptocurrency firm that it sued over using the ‘GRAM’ crypto ticker and trademark. In a Nov. 2 ruling, United States District Judge Charles Breyer granted $618,240 in attorney’s fees for 1,030.4 hours of work billed at $600 per hour. Lantah had requested compensation at a rate of $900 per hour, but the judge reduced the fees to meet the market rate for the services. Lantah was also awarded $6,737.35 in costs that Telegram did not object to. Lantah LLC has been defending the …

U.S. federal prosecutors are pushing for a heavy prison sentence to be levied against one of the founders of Centra Tech — the company behind a notorious initial coin offering in 2017 that was promoted by professional boxer Floyd Mayweather and musician DJ Khaled. In a government sentencing submission filed on Oct. 31, the government requested that U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield sentenced Centra Tech co-founder Robert Joseph Farkas to “a substantial term of imprisonment” to deter other fraudsters from conducting unlawful ICOs. “While legitimate ICOs represent a new and efficient means to raise capital, the loss of investor confidence …

On Wednesday, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the departure of William Hinman by the end of this year. Hinman joined the commission in 2017 and is currently the director of the SEC's Division of Corporate Finance. He also spearheaded the SEC's early work with digital assets, in which role he has made critical contributions to the discussion of which cryptocurrencies qualify as securities. The announcement says: "Mr. Hinman led efforts regarding the rapid innovation in digital assets, including by providing a framework that market participants could use to evaluate whether digital assets are offered and sold as securities." …

On Wednesday, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission announced the end of its lawsuit against Kik Interactive. The Canadian messenger app fell afoul of the U.S. regulator for failing to treat its sale of KIN tokens as a securities offering. A district judge confirmed the SEC’s view at the end of September, but only today did the court see the final judgment. As a result of today’s judgment, Kik will need to pay the SEC $5 million in penalties and keep the commission posted as to any capital raises for the next three years. Given that Kik was a …

The NAC Foundation has accused the United States Securities and Exchange Commission of misconduct in an ongoing case. According to court documents Oct. 20, Rowland Marcus Andrade and his company NAC Foundation asked a San Francisco federal judge to dismiss the SEC’s June lawsuit alleging that he and his associate Jack Abramoff defrauded investors in a $5.6 million token offering. Andrade argued that the SEC “purposefully attempted to mislead the court” by accusing him of offering a technology that had never been developed. According to the defendant, the SEC was aware that he held patents for Anti-Money Laundering technology related …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor's note Historians typically date the birth of international policing as we know it today to the 1800s, a response to the explosion in nationalist movements and non-governmental political radicalism in Europe. Just as new linking technologies like the telegraph and the steam engine aided and abetted new networks of political deplorables and any number of Sherlock Holmes plots, the explosion of communications tech of the last quarter-century has brought about new forms of crime. Which is, y’know, something everyone passively …

John McAfee’s recent detention in Spain caps off a few weeks where crypto news feeds have been dusted with reports of regulator enforcement actions and bans, arrests, and an exchange hack. Crypto news hasn’t looked like this in a while. The terrain of the crypto sector may once have been blighted by exit scams and cowboys, but the post-BlockFi, post-Grayscale crypto landscape is an entirely different beast. Does the recent spate of stories related to crime and legal proceedings suggest that the sector is being mopped up for a brighter future? Are regulators only now catching up? Or does it …

Negotiations between six legal firms over $8.3 million in attorney’s fees awarded from Tezos’ $25 million class-action settlement has descended into “unseemly mudslinging,” according to lawyers representing Block & Leviton LLP (B&L) and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. The $25 cash million settlement agreement with Tezos (XTZ) was approved in September, ending class-action claims that the firm distributed unregistered securities through its 2017 initial coin offering (ICO). On October 7, the two firms asked U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg to deny a motion for counsel fees filed in September by Hung G. Ta Esq. PLLC (HGT), LTL Attorneys LLP, the …

Update: The Justice Department reports John McAfee has been arrested in Spain for tax evasion and is awaiting extradition to the United States. On Monday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed suit against John McAfee for allegedly promoting initial coin offerings (ICOs) without disclosing that the ICO issuers were paying him, a violation of U.S. securities law. Per the complaint: "From at least November 2017 through February 2018, McAfee leveraged his fame to make more than $23.1 million U.S. Dollars ('USD') in undisclosed compensation by recommending at least seven “initial coin offerings” or ICOs to his Twitter followers." The …

On the last day of September 2020, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein dashed the hopes of Kik Interactive, crypto entrepreneurs and Simple Agreement for Future Tokens, or SAFT, proponents in general by ruling in favor of the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission’s motion for summary judgment in SEC v. Kik Interactive. The case was instigated by the SEC in June 2019 when the SEC filed an enforcement action against Kik Interactive Inc., (referred to in the complaint and here as Kik), a social media company that had used SAFT to launch its “Kin” crypto token in September 2017. Related: Does Kik stand …

The ecosystem is crowded with early versions of DeFi with many flaws: Because the tech is new, because the chains they run on have their own shortcomings, and because people are greedy and see a chance to make a lot of money very quickly by rushing products out without concern for who ends up paying for their gains. We can do better. Much like how the ICO boom of 2017 brought widespread interest to the crypto market, DeFi will also shift many eyes toward our industry. But we need to remember that the cost of the 2017 runup and ICO …

U.S. District Judge Alvin Kellerstein has sided with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ruling that the Canadian technology firm Kik’s $100 million initial coin offering (ICO) violated federal securities laws. On September 30, Judge Kellerstein responded to both parties’ requests for summary judgment, determining that Kik’s 2017 token sale meets the definition of a securities issuance according to the Howey test, as the ICO participants had a reasonable expectation of profit. “In public statements and at public events promoting Kin, Kik extolled Kin’s profit-making potential. Kik’s CEO explained the role of supply and demand in driving the value …