USA Law and Practice Contributed by: Gregory Strong, Sarah W. Chen, Brian Farber and Amil Sumaiya Malik, Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP
presumptively not securities under federal securities laws. The SEC explained that meme coins – crypto- assets inspired by internet memes or trends and pri- marily purchased for entertainment, social interaction or speculation – generally do not meet the definition of a security. The Joint Interpretation (see 2.1 Regulators and International Alignment ) subsequently incorpo- rated meme coins into a broader crypto-asset taxon- omy, generally confirming this characterisation while noting that meme coins marketed with profit expec- tations tied to promoter efforts may still be assessed under Howey . At the same time, the release empha- sised that meme coins marketed with profit expecta- tions tied to promoter efforts, or otherwise embedded in a broader scheme, may still be treated as securities under a facts-and-circumstances analysis. 2.5 Market Abuse Enforcement actions and judicial decisions arising from those actions have played an important role in shaping the application of existing laws to blockchain technology and digital assets. Notable SEC Actions In the securities law context, these decisions fall into two categories of cases – those involving initial alloca- tions of digital assets and those that involve second- ary transactions in tokens. Following the resignation of former SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, and the sub- sequent launch of the Crypto Task Force as well as the appointment of SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, in early 2025, the SEC dismissed several high-profile enforce- ment actions against major cryptocurrency firms, signalling a notable shift in its regulatory approach under new leadership. These dismissals, many filed “with prejudice”, indicate a significant change in the SEC’s stance towards cryptocurrency regulation, moving away from aggressive enforcement actions and towards a more collaborative and transpar- ent approach. This includes the SEC’s enforcement actions against Coinbase, Payward (dba Kraken), Cumberland, Consensys and Dragonchain. The SEC has also closed investigations without enforcement actions against multiple firms, including reported investigation closures against Robinhood Crypto, Uniswap Labs and Crypto.com.
Separately, on 5 March 2026, the SEC filed a pro- posed final judgment in its action against Justin Sun, pursuant to which the SEC agreed to settle its wash trading claim against Rainberry, Inc, while dismiss- ing, with prejudice, all remaining claims against Justin Sun, Tron Foundation Limited, BitTorrent Foundation Ltd, and Rainberry, Inc – effectively resolving one of the last remaining enforcement actions initiated under prior SEC Chairman Gary Gensler. Notable CFTC Actions In September 2023, the CFTC brought enforcement actions against three DeFi platforms – Opyn, Deridex and ZeroEx (0x) – alleging that each facilitated trading of derivatives or leveraged products without proper registration, regardless of decentralisation claims, in violation of the CEA. The charges included operating unregistered trading platforms, failing to register as futures commission merchants, and lacking required customer identification programmes. Each platform settled with the CFTC: Opyn paid a USD250,000 pen- alty, Deridex USD100,000 and ZeroEx USD200,000. Notable Criminal Matters On 20 November 2023, Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit com- modities fraud and conspiracy to commit money laun- dering stemming from his activities at FTX and Alam- eda Research. He was later sentenced to 25 years in prison. In August 2023, the DOJ filed a criminal indictment against two developers of Tornado Cash, an open- source privacy protocol that facilitates anonymous transactions by obscuring the origins of cryptocur- rencies such as Bitcoin and Ether. The criminal case against the developers of the Tornado Cash software alleges that the developers engaged in a conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmission business. The indict- ment alleged that the defendants created, operated and promoted Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer that facilitated more than USD1 billion in money laun- dering transactions, and laundered hundreds of mil- lions of dollars for the Lazarus Group, the sanctioned
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