A U.S. District Judge has approved the majority of redaction requests received during the proceedings surrounding the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against messaging firm Telegram over its $1.7 billion initial coin offering (ICO). The SEC took action against Telegram in October 2019, filing a temporary restraining order barring Telegram from distributing its tokens. The SEC submitted a cache of documents in support of its temporary restraining order, including roughly one dozen exhibits that revealed the strategic considerations of venture capital firms and investors who participated in the ICO and later cooperated with the SEC. The documents were filed …

David Weild IV, who is known as the father of the JOBS Act, believes that the U.S. government had to move to stamp out Facebook’s Libra stablecoin. Facebook: Number of Active Users. Source: Statista. ‘Government’s got to do something’ In an interview with Cointelegraph, Weild said that when he first heard about Zuckerberg’s initiative, he knew right away that the government needed to step in: “When I heard what Zuckerberg was going to do (and this was before the government clamped down), I said ‘the government’s got to do something here.’ And it was picked up by the House Financial …

On June 10, 12 Belarus' commercial and state-owned banks received permission from the national central bank to issue digital tokens. They will distribute these digital offerings through an upcoming pilot program. According to Sputnik Belarus, the country has adopted Decree No. 8, "On the development of the digital economy," giving the power to the Belarus National Bank to implement the banks' digital economy dynamics. The governmental framework creates the legal environment required for initial coin offerings, or ICOs, across Belarus. The pilot program will run from January 1, 2021, to January 1, 2024. Pilot program to take place in a …

Robert Farkas is negotiating a plea bargain for his role in the fraudulent Centra Tech initial coin offering (ICO) that commissioned celebrity endorsements from Floyd Mayweather Jr and DJ Khaled. According to Law360, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield has granted Farkas’ attorneys’ request to schedule a plea hearing for next week on June 10, with details of the proposed plea yet to be disclosed. The trials of Farkas and fellow Centra founder Sohrab Sharma were delayed until September as the coronavirus lockdown took effect during March. Centra Tech founder to negotiate plea deal Farkas and Sharma face charges for defrauding …

Investors who participated in Tezos’s (XTZ) initial coin offering between July 1, 2017, and July 13, 2017, have been notified that they may be eligible for a share of the proposed $25 million settlement to an ongoing class-action lawsuit alleging securities violations. What may comprise the case’s final settlement hearing is set to take place on Aug. 27 to determine whether the settlement and proposed plan of allocation will be approved as “fair and reasonable” and whether attorney’s fees will be awarded as part of the agreement. Per a release on Monday, Block & Leviton, the firm behind the lawsuit, …

Maerki Baumann, an unlisted family-owned bank in Switzerland, is expanding its cryptocurrency services by introducing crypto custody and trading. Following regulatory approval from the Swiss Financial Market Advisory Authority, or FINMA, Maerki Baumann will be offering its clients the trading and custody of crypto starting from June 2020. Five crypto assets will be available at the launch Announcing the news on May 29, the Zurich-based private bank said that the launch of new crypto features comes in line with Maerki Baumann’s crypto strategy initiated in early 2019. As part of the strategy, Maerki Baumann has been offering business accounts for …

A company once heralded as a “decentralized alternative” to Google recently settled with the SEC. BitClave suffered a near-immediate collapse in price The project’s token price collapsed almost immediately upon change listing and never recovered. Seemingly the dream of a “decentralized” Google never materialized. The company’s website does not have a link to a GitHub repository. CAT Token Price, Volume & Market Capitalization. Source. Coin360. The company was headquartered in San Jose, California, which may have increased its vulnerability to regulator enforcement. Considering that its market capitalization has collapsed and the overall depreciation of crypto assets since its heyday, it …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ordered cryptocurrency firm BitClave to return $25.5 million to investors. In a May 28 announcement, the SEC announced charges against the California-based cryptocurrency startup. The regulator found BitClave to be responsible for selling unregistered securities in its initial coin offering. Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit Kristina Littman commented: “Issuers of securities, traditional or digital, must comply with the registration requirements of the federal securities laws. [...] The remedies ordered by the Commission will provide meaningful relief to investors in this unregistered offering.” The SEC said, “BitClave agreed to …

Polkadot (DOT) launched a stand-alone blockchain today, although the network is not considered the project’s mainnet yet. Polkadot sits under the wing of blockchain infrastructure company Parity Technologies, and the Web3 Foundation, a type of incubator for decentralized tech. The Polkadot protocol aims to provide compatibility across different blockchains. “There could be more than one chain candidate before it officially transitions to mainnet,” said Peter Mauric, head of public affairs at Parity Technologies. The solution unveiled a testnet of sorts in 2019. Calling the exploratory product “Kusama,” Polkadot did not refer to this as a testnet, but as a “canary …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s vigor in pursuing initial coin offerings, or ICOs, has become a major boogeyman within the crypto community. Most recently, the case against Telegram ended with that company abandoning its planned open network and Gram tokens, which raised $1.7 billion. The question before the crypto community is now: Have we witnessed the death of the ICO? The answer is yes, in that, with all due fear of predictions, we will never see the likes of 2017’s ICO boom again. That vision of an ICO is indeed dead. This is not the end for new …

On Tuesday, the Atari Group announced a partnership with the Litecoin Foundation, betting on the overlap of interests between the crypto and gaming communities. Atari has raised 74.19 Bitcoin (BTC), worth roughly $514,000, over the course of the presale stage of its initial coin offering up to now. The funds came mostly from partners. Not only will Atari accept investments in Litecoin (LTC), Bitcoin and Ether (ETH), but gamers will be able to pay for its upcoming Video Computer System, or VCS, with Litecoin and receive a discount. It will be available at the foundation’s online store. The overlap between …

Per a May 18 complaint, more investors are looking to recoup funds invested in the record-breaking initial coin offering for EOS — which netted a total of $4 billion in cryptocurrency. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are calling over $200 million of that money illegally raised. Conflict with U.S. securities law and investors The complaint alleges that EOS was an unregistered security offering by block.one. Block.one is the development firm that spearheaded the ICO for EOS, which many saw as a form of investment in the company. Language in the purchase agreements in EOS’s pre-sale told investors in the United States …