⁶In December 2020,¹ the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs² and its current and former CEOs, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen,³ alleging that they have been conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering since 2012⁵ by selling XRP tokens, which the agency claims are investment contracts.

⁸In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continued its crackdown on initial coin offerings (ICOs). The SEC charged two co-founders of a purported financial services start-up with orchestrating a fraudulent ICO that raised more than $32 million from thousands of investors last year. The SEC's complaint alleges that Sohrab “Sam” Sharma and Robert Farkas, co-founders of Centra Tech. Inc., masterminded a fraudulent ICO in which Centra offered and sold unregistered investments through a "CTR Token"⁹.

¹³In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged EtherDelta, a digital "token" trading platform, with operating an unregistered national securities exchange. This was the SEC's first enforcement action based on findings that such a platform operated as an unregistered national securities exchange. The SEC's order found that Zachary Coburn, the founder of EtherDelta, caused EtherDelta to operate as an unregistered national securities exchange¹⁴. The SEC also charged TokenLot LLC, a self-described “ICO Superstore,” and its owners with acting as unregistered broker-dealers. This was the SEC’s first case charging unregistered broker-dealers for selling digital tokens after the SEC issued The DAO Report in 2017 cautioning that those who offer and sell digital securities must comply with the federal securities laws¹⁵.