Does a decades-old securities law apply to an initial coin offering (ICO)? In a case that represents the first time securities laws have been applied to cryptocurrencies, a district judge says it may.On September 11, 2018, in a district courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, Judge Raymond Dearie ruled that two ICOs were securities, based on established laws that govern the financial instruments. His decision does not imply that all ICOs are securities, but that simply calling a token a “currency” does not preclude it from being classified as a security. Turning back a few pages, in October 2017, businessman Maksim Zaslavskiy was accused of misleading investors in two separate ICOs. He raised about $300,000 in a cryptocurrency called REcoin, which he claimed was backed by real estate, and a cryptocurrency called Diamond, which he claimed was backed by diamonds. In truth, no real estate nor diamonds backed either of the coins, and Zaslavskiy was charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy and two counts of securities fraud — charges that carry up to five years in jail and a fine. Zaslavskiy moved to have the charges dismissed. He argued that his ICOs were not securities, but “the exchange of one currency for another,” and that securities laws are too “unconstitutionally vague” to be applied to his case. Cornell law professor Robert Hockett calls the insistence that the laws are vague a “Hail Mary.” “It is...
