Bringing closure to the long-awaited judgment related to the money laundering activities over the BitMEX crypto exchange, one of the four federal district courthouses in New York reportedly sentenced two-year probation and six months of home detention to founder and ex-CEO Arthur Hayes. Arthur Hayes, along with the other BitMEX co-founders Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reed, and the company’s first non-employee Gregory Dwyer, pleaded guilty to the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) violations on Feb 24, admitting to “willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an anti-money laundering (“AML”) program at BitMEX.” Pleading guilty to supporting money laundering is a punishable …
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is unable to confirm or deny if a video predominately featuring Bill Hinman actually features Bill Hinman. Bill Hinman, also known as William Hinman, is the former director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, and he has become a key factor in the long-running legal dispute between SEC vs Ripple Labs over alleged unregistered securities offerings via Ripple (XRP) tokens. Speaking at the 2018 Fintech Week Conference — while serving at the SEC — Hinman stated that the sale of Ether (ETH) did not constitute “securities transactions.” But, it seems as …
At the beginning of May, the British Web3 community celebrated an important legal precedent — the High Court of Justice in London, the closest analog to the United States Supreme Court, has ruled that nonfungible tokens (NFT) represent “private property.” There is a caveat, though: In the court’s ruling, this private property status does not extend to the actual underlying content that NFT represents. Cointelegraph reached out to legal experts to understand what this decision could possibly change in the British legal landscape. The theft of Boss Beauties In February 2022, Lavinia D. Osbourne, founder of Women in Blockchain Talks, …
The Shanghai High People’s Court has issued a document in which it states that Bitcoin is subject to property rights laws and regulations. That finding was made in relation to a lawsuit filed in a district court in October 2020 involving the recovery of a loan of 1 Bitcoin (BTC). The lower court recognized Bitcoin as having value, scarcity and disposability and, therefore, being subject to property rights and meeting the definition of virtual property. According to the Sina website, the Shanghai Baoshan District People’s Court ruled in favor of plaintiff Cheng Mou, ordering defendant Shi Moumou to return the …
A crypto trader who defrauded over 170 people was sentenced to 42 months in prison on Wednesday for operating a series of cryptocurrency funds claiming to make big returns but in reality, were losing money and instead operated as a Ponzi scheme. The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said that 25-year-old Jeremy Spence had solicited millions through false representations, “including that Spence’s crypto trading had been extremely profitable when, in fact, Spence’s trading had been consistently unprofitable.” Spence, who operated the social media channels for a crypto investment scheme called Coin Signals, was handed the decision by United States …
A United States district court has charged two European citizens in connection to a blockchain and cryptocurrency conference in North Korea which violated U.S. sanctions back in 2019. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the court documents allege that Alejandro Cao De Benos, a citizen of Spain, and Christopher Emms, a citizen of the United Kingdom, conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on North Korea when they jointly planned and organized the 2019 Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference. The pair allegedly worked with former Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith to provide instruction on how the DPRK could use blockchain and cryptocurrency …
A court in the Chinese city of Hangzhou issued a one-of-a-kind judgment against a nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace for allowing a user to create (or mint) NFTs of stolen artwork. As reported by South China Morning Post, the court verdict toward the NFT marketplace was made after Shenzhen-based company Qice filed a lawsuit against NFTCN’s parent company, BigVerse. The lawsuit claimed that an NFTCN user stole a copyrighted artwork of Ma Qianli, a Chinese artist specializing in drawing and printing. The user of the NFT platform allegedly poached one of Ma’s cartoons. Based on the evidence collected, the court found …
Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum (ETH) developer has been sentenced to 63 months in prison and will pay a fine of $100,000 for attending a conference and assisting North Korea use blockchain technology in contravention of economic sanctions imposed by the United States. On Tuesday, April 12, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York handed down the decision. Judge Castel stated that “what you see here is intentionality, a deliberate, willful intent to violate the sanctions' regime,” adding that the crime was made worse because Griffith had a “desire to educate people on how to …
In an important precedent, a Supreme Court judge in New York state’s Yates County ruled in favor of cryptocurrency mining firm Greenidge Generation, dismissing a petition filed by a coalition of environmental activists. According to an Apr. 7 press release by Greenidge, judge Daniel Doyle dismissed a petition against the Greenidge Generation Holdings that a group of environmental organizations — Sierra Club, Seneca Lake Guardian, Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes, as well as a number of individuals — brought in an attempt to stop the mining operation at Seneca Lake. The petition also called to halt Greenidge’s plans to …
A federal judge has dismissed a class action complaint asserting Binance violated U.S. securities laws by not registering as a broker-dealer or exchange, and sold crypto tokens which were not registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The original complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was brought by a group of investors who say they invested in the tokens EOS, BNT, SNT, QSP, KNC, TRX, FUN, ICX, OMG, LEND, ELF, and CVC around 2017 and 2018. An amended complaint was filed, only listing nine tokens, with BNT, SMT, and CVC …
Three individuals who bought cryptocurrency through Coinbase filed a proposed class action March 11 in the Southern District Court of New York alleging that Coinbase is operating as an unregistered securities exchange. The lawsuit lists 79 tokens that it claims are securities Coinbase is selling in violation of state and federal law, and the buyers were not warned of the risks involved in their purchases. The plaintiffs, Christopher Underwood, Louis Oberlander and Henry Rodriguez, represented by Connecticut law firm Silver Golub & Teitell, filed the amended complaint naming Coinbase Global, Coinbase and CEO Brian Armstrong as defendants. The 255-page document …
Southern New York District Court Judge Analisa Torres issued two rulings Friday on motions filed in the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple Labs. Ripple argued that it was not given fair notice by the agency that it would consider the token a security, thus denying the company due process. Judge Torres denied the SEC motion, filed in April, to dismiss this defense, and by doing so affirmed that the defense is viable in the suit — in other words, that the defense, if accepted, could be used to win the case. The judge also denied a motion …