SEC Uncertainty Looms Over Token Summit

Published on by Coindesk | Published on

In a widely circulated story, the Waterloo, Ontario, company had promised legal action against an expected regulatory action, but the odds that Kik will pursue that seem to be diminishing, even if the company's legal expenses are not.

Livingston would prefer the SEC take any action rather than continuing to delay.

"What we're saying to them is, 'Stop dragging this out, if you want to go to court, if you think there is an infraction, then let's go to court,'" Livingston told CoinDesk at Token Summit 2019 in New York City on Thursday.

Livingston's remarks fell in line with a major theme of the summit itself: regulatory uncertainty.

Muneeb Ali of Blockstack took the stage to discuss his company's Regulation A+ filing with the SEC. The Reg A+ is colloquially known as the mini-IPO and requires much of the same legal legwork.

Token Summit co-host William Mougayar said on stage that he had heard Blockstack had spent as much as $2 million to finalize its filing.

While declining to confirm that figure, Ali said he expected that if Blockstack got a qualification for its offering to U.S. investors, then future companies would be able to take the same approach at a lower cost.

Many members of the larger crypto community appear to support redefining the terms, offering their support for Congressmen Warren Davidson and Darren Soto and their Token Taxonomy Act, which would exempt certain cryptocurrencies from securities laws.

"You've got all sorts of problems in the cash market for things that aren't securities."

Robert Rosenblum, an attorney at Wilson SAonsini Goodrich & Rosati, said his firm has typically seen most cryptos as securities.

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