SEC Went Head To Head With Telegram, Reviewing TON Again

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is in the crypto news today for going ahead and filing a brief for the ongoing court hearing which is taking place between Telegram (one of the widely used encrypted messenger services) and the Commission itself. Basically, SEC went head to head with Telegram and issued a brief which was authored on behalf of the CDC by Lilya Tessler, a partner, as well as the New York head of Sidley Austin LLP.

Another brief which was filed by the Blockchain Association on January 21 appears to be in clear support of Telegram. This brief opposes the SEC’s move to block Telegram from delivering its native crypto tokens, known as Grams, to early investors who were participating in the ICO.

The central argument that SEC went with shows that the independent body sees the purchase agreements offered by Telegram which were designed to fully comply with the SEC’s existing securities rules.

As part of the filing, the arguments as to how the US District Court for Southern New York should view the digital assets. Currently, there is no clarity in regard to the following subjects:

• Whether or not an investment contract is being offered in a securities transaction
• Whether an investment contract is a commodity which can be sold in a traditional commercial transaction

As the SEC went forward with the Telegram case, they have been attempting to define the term “securities” just like many other bodies. Gregory Klumo who is the founder and CEO of the euro-backed stablecoin Stasis, was in the Bitcoin and altcoin news recently, referring to this subject in detail:

“If a developer team retains certain assets and sells it to investors, it falls into the definition of security. I think that the U.S. legislation must be shaped to take into regard emerging technologies and new business models that hadn’t been present not only in the days of SEC creation but also during the judicial battles on security definitions.”

The crypto industry has been witnessing an enormous amount of interest around stablecoins, a digital offering which presents users with all of the various advantages of cryptocurrencies all while having their values pegged to a stable fiat asset such as the US dollar, the Euro and others.