A federal judge this week may have added some clarity to whether initial coin offerings fall under securities law after issuing a first-of-its-kind ruling in a criminal context.

In a case out of the Eastern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie ruled that securities law is fair game in prosecuting cryptocurrency fraud. Dearie's ruling rebuffed a motion to dismiss filed by defense counsel for Maksim Zaslavskiy. The judge denied that cryptocurrencies are “expressly excluded” from being defined as a security, an argument buttressed by existing case law, defense counsel argued.

The ruling marks among the earliest instances of a federal judge weighing in on how an ICO can be regulated. Its potential to shape regulatory oversight and litigation are already being discussed by experts, many of whom disagree on its significance.