Today we face an unexpected move from the Securities and Exchange Comission.
EtherDelta is a decentralized trading platform of ERC-20 tokens, a commonly used in Initial Coin Offereings type of tokens.
The exchange’s founder Zachary Coburn is facing settled charges from the SEC based on findings that this platform operates as an unregistered national securities exchange.
EtherDelta is a Decentralized App, also called dApp, and is quite tricky to use for first time users. It is also a platform among some other exchanges that offers opportunity to every ERC-20 token to be traded.
Due to its decentralized nature, users are not registered, there are no KYC or AML procedures, its users only connect their wallets to a contract that provides them the opportunity to sell their tokens.
Law enforcement in the U.S. has been showing to be very tough throughout latest crypto-related issues, but most of their charges were on centralized exchanges dealing with U.S. dollars or FIAT currencies as well as hedge funds that were not registered.
At least in my own opinion, this is an uncommon procedure, since the exchange is not dealing with anything related to the traditional finance system, even though the SEC sees every token as a security, other federal agencies share other positions.
Legal-related issues in crypto will still face a lot of turbulence, but history shows that choosing U.S. jurisdictions to host your business will not be a clever choice.