BitMEX is one of the worldâs largest cryptocurrency trading platforms. On August 10, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a Consent Order that the U.S. Commodities Futures and Trading Commission agreed to with five companies charged with operating BitMEX. The order required the BitMEX entities to pay a $100 million civil monetary penalty. See here BitMEX is owned and operated by HDR Global Trading Limited, which is registered…
Cryptocurrency has been a topic of significant debate and evolution worldwide, and Kenya is no exception. The journey of cryptocurrency regulation in Kenya is a tale of transformation from initial skepticism and outright opposition to eventual acceptance and legalization. In the early 2010s, as cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin began gaining global attention, Kenyaâs financial landscape was primarily dominated by traditional banking systems and mobile money services like M-Pesa. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) was initially…
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has charged two California men in Los Angeles federal court with defrauding investors of more than $22 million in what DOJ describes as the largest non-fungible tokens (NFT) scheme it has ever prosecuted. View the indictment here. Both defendants, aged 23 and hailing from Thousand Oaks, California, were charged with defrauding investors of over $22 million through a series of NFT rug pulls. The term “rug pull” refers to…
Social media â with Tik Tok being the primary medium these days â illustrates the continued power of the internet to lift people from obscurity to international stardom. Haliey Welch is a perfect example. The 22-year-old went viral in the summer of 2024 after a street interview where she used the term “hawk tuah” to describe a sex act, which led to her being known as Hawk Tuah Girl. She used her fame to sell…
In September 2021, El Salvador made headlines by becoming the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender (see our post). This bold move, spearheaded by President Nayib Bukele, aimed to revolutionize the nationâs financial system, promote financial inclusion, and attract foreign investment. However, the journey has been fraught with challenges and controversies, culminating in a recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that has led to significant policy changes. This…
When President Trump nominated Caroline Crenshaw as a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2020, she was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. President Biden renominated Commissioner Crenshaw earlier this year but the Senate did not vote on the confirmation prior to the November 5 election. A vote by the Senate Banking Committee was supposed to take place during a meeting this past Wednesday, December 11, 2024, but the meeting was postponed at…
In an opinion issued on November 26, 2024, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United Staes Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a lower courtâs decision and held that the United States Treasury Department did not have the right to sanction Tornado Cash because the statute that Treasury relied on authorized sanctions against âpropertyâ and Tornado Cash is not property. This blog post is a summary of the content of the courtâs opinion.…
We have previously written about the recent decision that allowed a lawsuit to go forward against Shaquille O’Neal and others related to his role in the Astrals Project. Shaq and his son, Myles O’Neal, were founders of the Astrals Project. As alleged in the lawsuit,  Astrals Project is a collection of 10,000 NFTs 3D avatars (designed by artist Damien Guimoneau), which Plaintiffs alleged was aimed to promote investment in a virtual world in which users…
There have been numerous lawsuits brought against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging that it has acted improperly and outside the law in regulating the crypto industry through enforcement actions and threats â rather than through regulation. See here (Consensys lawsuit) and here (Crypto.com lawsuit). On November 14, 2024, Attorneys General from 18 states brought their own lawsuit, naming as defendants the SEC, Chairman Gary Gensler, and each of the Commissioners (in their…
Those familiar with the career of Elon Musk and his use of tongue-in-cheek conventions (such as tweeting about taking Tesla private at $420 a share), were probably not surprised, based on the many reports of actions he took relating to Dogecoin, that the new government commission he has been tasked with co-leading has the acronym DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). And, within days of the report of the creation of DOGE, the plaintiffs who brought…