U.S. SEC Releases Statement on Potentially Unlawful Online Platforms

On March 7, 2018, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement on potentially unlawful platforms trading digital assets (the Trading Platform Statement).[1] Following up on an issue which was highlighted in its July 2017 report on the offering of digital tokens by “The DAO” (the DAO Report), a critical question is whether exchanges that allow token holders to trade tokens need to register as a national securities exchange or operate pursuant to an exemption from registra