In its first enforcement action in the cryptocurrency arena in 2022, on January 3, 2022, the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) entered an Order filing and simultaneously settling charges against Delaware-registered Blockratize, Inc., which operated its business under the name Polymarket. The Order finds that, beginning in approximately June 2020, Polymarket had been operating an illegal unregistered or non-designated facility for event-based binary options online trading contracts, known as “event markets.” According to the…
On May 7, 2020, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought suit in federal court in Florida against Daniel Fingerhut of Miami, Florida, and three companies that he worked with, Digital Platinum, Inc. (DPI), a Florida corporation, Digital Platinum, Ltd. (DPL), an Israeli company, and Huf Mediya Ltd. (Huf) a Bulgarian company, as well as the control persons of all three entities, Tal Valariola and Itay Barak. According to the Complaint, beginning in at least October 2013 and continuing through August 2018,…