Hodler's Digest, September 9-16: SEC Heightens Crypto Crackdown, While US Court Ruling Marks Cryptos as Securities

In an apparent first, a New York federal judge has ruled that U.S. securities laws are applicable for prosecuting crypto fraud allegations.

According to recent comments from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, the growth and innovation of the crypto and blockchain spaces are reaching their plateau and will not see "1,000-times growth" again.

The SEC issued cease-and-desist orders to Crypto Asset Management and its founder Timothy Enneking, as well as "ICO superstore" TokenLot, claiming a misrepresentation as a registered company and failure to register respectively.

The Gemini dollar, of the Winklevoss twins' crypto trading platform Gemini, now has the backing of the New York Department of Financial Services, alongside Blockchain trust company Paxos's U.S.-dollar backed stablecoin.

Nasdaq Considers Adding Cryptocurrency Assets To Analytics Tool.Nasdaq, the New York-headquartered stock market giant Nasdaq, is exploring the addition of crypto datasets to its market analytics tool.

Nasdaq's Head of Alternative Data Bill Dague said in an email to Cointelegraph that "Given [an] abundance of interest, we are exploring cryptocurrency related datasets. Whether or not we launch a crypto-related product remains to be seen." The crypto datasets would potentially be integrated into Nasdaq's data Analytics Hub, which launched in 2017 with the aim to make unstructured data more intelligible for the benefit of investors.

Crypto, Blockchain Lobbying Group Formed In Washington D.C.A group of U.S.-based blockchain and crypto companies have announced they will form the Blockchain Association, the "First" lobbying group representing the blockchain industry in Washington D.C. Called the Blockchain Association, the group is made up of industry leaders such as crypto exchange Coinbase, technology startup Protocol Labs, as well as the Digital Currency Group and Polychain Capital.

The Malta Stock Exchange's fintech and digital asset subsidiary, MSX PLC, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with crypto exchange Binance to jointly launch a new security token digital exchange in the country.

Homero Joshua Garza, the CEO of the now-defunct U.S. crypto firm GAW Miners, has been sentenced to 21 months in prison for defrauding investors with the creation and sale of a scamcoin dubbed PayCoin.

Ten years after the the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bloomberg looks at what has happened with the cryptocurrency industry, attempting to conduct a partial "Reckoning of where all the money in crypto as gone." In Bloomberg's words - "Something as died."