Just days prior to Gary Gensler’s retirement from his position as SEC chair and crypto critic, the SEC filed a complaint against Nova Labs.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued Nova Labs, the company behind the open-source Helium Network. This comes just a few days before Gary Gensler, the current chair of the SEC and a well-known critic of crypto, steps down on January 20.
The SEC claims that the company sold unregistered investment products, such as those that mine cryptocurrency and a program that enabled users to exchange their confidential data for crypto assets.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Nova Labs of selling unregistered securities in a statement on January 17. The company offered electronic devices known as “Hotspots” that mined the company’s cryptocurrency, Helium (HNT), as well as a program called “Discovery Mapping” that allowed users to exchange their private data for cryptocurrency.
In the crypto industry, the term “unregistered securities” is well-known, and numerous similar lawsuits have arisen over the years under Gensler’s stewardship at the SEC.
Despite Ripple Lab’s significant victory for the industry in July 2023, which determined that XRP did not qualify as an unregistered security transaction in relation to programmatic sales on digital asset exchanges, the SEC promptly filed an appeal and disputed the decision.
Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Nova Labs of making false claims to potential investors. The SEC claimed that major companies such as Lime, a micro-mobility company; Nestlé, a food and beverage giant; and Salesforce, a cloud computing software firm, were utilizing or relying on Nova Labs’ wireless network when those claims were allegedly false.
Nevertheless, the SEC may reportedly contemplate the dismissal of specific crypto enforcement cases in light of the new leadership’s assumption of responsibility on January 20.
The SEC may evaluate its existing court cases against crypto firms in the first few days after Trump’s inauguration, according to a Jan. 15 Reuters report that cites “people briefed on the matter.”
The report indicates that the commission may consider freezing litigation that does not involve allegations of fraud, suggesting that these cases could relate exclusively to securities law violations.
Also Read: JPMorgan Identifies the Factors Contributing to Bitcoin’s Persistent Dominance
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