Non-Fungible Insights: Blockchain Decrypted

David Sacks, the White House Crypto Czar, led a joint press conference with key congressional leaders to provide insight into a bipartisan roadmap for digital asset legislation, ushering in the “Golden Age” of digital assets. Sacks emphasized the need for domestic innovation, regulatory clarity, and a move away from the prosecution and persecution of the digital assets industry. Sacks’ objective is to collaborate with the executive branch working group for digital assets and the SEC’s Crypto Task Force to accomplish the task that President Trump assigned in his Executive Order regarding digital assets.

On January 21, 2025, the SEC’s Acting Chairman, Mark T. Uyeda, announced the formation of an SEC Crypto Task Force (CTF) led by Commissioner Hester Peirce. On February 4, 2025, Peirce laid out 10 of the CTF’s top priorities, which are not exhaustive, nor are they presented in order of priority or order of expected completion. Overall, the focus of the CTF is to take a new approach to regulating digital assets and create clear and practical policy measures geared towards innovation.

On May 18, 2023, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) and Representative Darren Soto (D-FL) proposed the bipartisan Securities Clarities Act (the “Act”). The purpose of the Act is to “clarify and codify that an asset sold pursuant to an investment contract….including an asset in digital form…, that is not otherwise a security…does not become a security as a result of being sold or otherwise transferred pursuant to an investment contract.”

On May 30, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) settled its case against a former Coinbase employee and his brother for alleged “insider trading” of digital assets. At the heart of the dispute was whether several digital assets trading on the platform were properly regarded as “securities” under U.S. law.

On September 8, 2022, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler expounded his thoughts on cryptocurrency tokens (“Tokens”) and cryptocurrency intermediaries (“Intermediaries”) at the Practising Law Institute’s “SEC Speaks” program.

On June 13, 2022, a class-action lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California against Binance U.S. (“Binance”), the United States-headquartered partner of one of the most prominent global digital asset exchange platforms. The named Plaintiff, who had purchased Terra USD (“UST”) through Binance since April 13, 2022, alleges, among other things, that Binance misrepresented UST as a “safe” asset to purchasers and violated U.S. federal and state securities laws.