Federal Judge Slaps Down the SEC’s Attempt to Regulate Crypto Liquidity Providers
The authors write "Cryptocurrency traders and decentralized finance (DeFi) participants have an additional thing to be thankful for this year after a district court in the Northern District of Texas struck down a Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) rule redefining who must register as a securities “dealer.”
January 02, 2025 at 10:00 AM
10 minute read
Cryptocurrency traders and decentralized finance (DeFi) participants have an additional thing to be thankful for this year after a district court in the Northern District of Texas struck down a Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) rule redefining who must register as a securities “dealer.” The SEC had attempted to use its regulatory powers to reinterpret the term “dealer,” as that term is used in the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) to include market participants that engage in a regular pattern of buying and selling securities in a manner that provides liquidity to other market participants.
Because the SEC has deemed many cryptocurrency tokens to be securities, this redefinition placed a variety of cryptocurrency companies, including users of DeFi protocols known as automated market makers (“AMMs”), in the crosshairs of SEC enforcement attorneys. By invalidating the SEC’s rule and holding that promulgating this rule was outside the SEC’s rulemaking authority, the court delivered a decisive loss to the SEC in its ongoing campaign to sweep cryptocurrency companies into its regulatory ambit without first obtaining congressional authority.
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