On January 10, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved, for the first time, Bitcoin exchange traded funds for spot markets. A link to SEC Chair Gary Gensler‘s announcement is available here. In this post, two crypto experts discuss the SEC’s decision.
Daniel Payne and Ijeoma Okoli (photos courtesy of authors)
The NYU Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE) is following the recent federal enforcement actions against Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its founder Changpeng Zhao. In this post, crypto experts, former prosecutors, and the former Superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services offer their expert insights on these developments.
Left to right: Maria Vullo, Eugene Ingoglia, Daniel Payne, Ijeoma Okoli, and Paul Krieger (Photos courtesy of authors)
The NYU School of Law Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE) is following the collapse of FTX and the civil and criminal enforcement actions arising from FTX’s and its founder’s alleged misconduct. In this post, several white collar defense, former federal prosecutors, and cryptocurrency experts, offer their reactions to the verdict in the Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) trial on November 2, 2023.
Top left to right: William Komaroff, Seetha Ramachandran, David I. Miller, and Ijeoma Okoli
Bottom left to right: Jessica Lonergan, Tarek Helou, Elizabeth Roper, and Chehak Gogia
(Photos courtesy of authors)
Editor’s Note: The NYU Law Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement is following the recent decision in SEC v. Ripple Labs, Inc., in which the district court decided competing summary judgment motions for both the SEC and Ripple by holding that contractual sales of XRP, Ripple’s native token, to institutional investors were securities while the XRP token itself was not. In this post, former SEC attorneys and federal prosecutors and current securities regulatory and white collar attorneys react to the decision.
Top left to right: Joseph Hall, Robert Cohen, Fiona Moran, and Zachary Zweihorn, and David Miller.
Bottom left to right: Daniel Payne, Avi Weitzman, Nicolas Morgan, and Ijeoma Okoli.
(Photos courtesy of the authors)
Editor’s Note: The NYU Law Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE) is following the SEC’s recent enforcement actions against major digital asset exchanges Coinbase and Binance and Binance’s founder, Chanpeng Zhao. In this post, cryptocurrency experts provide their insights to the SEC’s enforcement actions.
From left to right: Marc Fagel, Ijeoma Okoli, Daniel Payne, and Charles Senatore (photos courtesy of the authors)
Editor’s Note: The NYU School of Law Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE) is watching the recent banking crisis and failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and, most recently, First Republic Bank. PCCE is looking to publish additional posts in this area and those interested should contact joseph.facciponti@nyu.edu.
From left to right: Jonathan Rusch, Ijeoma Okoli, and Frederic Krieger (photos courtesy of authors)
Editor’s Note: The NYU Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement (PCCE) has been following the recent banking crisis and will be publishing articles exploring the reasons for the banks’ failures and the broader regulatory, policy, and legal implications arising therefrom.
by Ijeoma Okoli
Ijeoma Okoli (photo courtesy of the author)
Introduction
On March 8, 2023, Silvergate Bank entered into voluntary liquidation. Two days later, Silicon Valley Bank (“SVB”), after experiencing a severe bank run, was taken over by regulators and with it, the most fraught weekend in global banking since the 2008 financial crisis began. Regulators in the US and UK (SVB had a UK banking subsidiary) scrambled to ensure that there were solutions in place before Asian markets opened Sunday night, East Coast time. Tech founders in Silicon Valley and the many venture capital firms (“VCs”) backing them used social media to rally the troops to put pressure on governments to ensure that they had access to their money by open of business the following Monday morning.
by Ijeoma Okoli
Ijeoma Okoli
On January 12, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) unveiled charges against two large, well-known participants in the crypto sector, Gemini Trust Company, LLC (“Gemini”) and Genesis Global Capital, LLC (“Genesis”) and accused them of engaging in a multi-billion dollar unregistered offer and sale of securities to retail investors in the form of Gemini Earn, a crypto lending program, between February 2021 and November 2022.[1] The SEC’s action came three months after both firms paused customer withdrawals, effectively trapping funds of retail and institutional investors alike with no indication as to whether customers will ever be able to recoup their funds. A few days after the SEC unveiled charges against Gemini and Genesis, Genesis filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code,[2] effectively ending a once lucrative form of capital raising in the crypto sector as other major competitors had already either run into bankruptcy trouble themselves in 2022 and/or had been previously subject to SEC enforcement actions.