Crypto users and advocates are rallying somewhat uncertainly around the cause of the decentralized content platform operator LBRY. The operator has been hit with a USD 11m legal challenge from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – which, per legal documents filed with the New Hampshire District Court, claims that the operator has raised money from token sales of its “credits” in an “unregistered securities” offering.
The SEC has already gone on the warpath accusing Ripple of similar misdoings with its XRP token. And earlier in the year, a congressional select committee sought to take the Tron (TRX)-owned decentralized DLive platform to task for what it claimed was its role in the storming of the Capitol building in Washington DC in early January.
But it appears that crypto defenders will not give up without a fight. LBRY itself has launched a website named Help LBRY Save Crypto, where it claims that even if the SEC’s move does cripple the company itself, the decentralized nature of its LBRY network and blockchain protocol means that users themselves will be able to continue using the platform.
On the website, the firm stated that the SEC appears to have gone to what seems like extremes in its pursuit of the firm, writing,
“[The SEC] can see an untapped wealth of fines and settlements here and they want to be the regulator who controls crypto in the USA. You might hate XRP, but right now Ripple and their lawyers are preventing the SEC from getting their hands on the crypto market.”
On another thread, one concerned individual asked: “What next? Bitcoin? They think they can go for anyone.”
And elsewhere, posters variously claimed that the SEC move was “bearish as f***,” and did not “bode well” – with one claimed that they would be “selling” their tokens out of fear of what might come next.
A few claimed that the SEC legal challenge may well have been grounded, and did not necessarily mean that the regulator had set its sights on a range of disparate crypto targets.
One opined that the SEC had moved because LBRY “broke an important securities law,” adding,
“The SEC claims that credits have no use other than speculation, which contradicts the facts and history of experience on LBRY. The LBRY credit […] allows individuals to create an identity, tip creators, and publish, purchase, and boost content in a decentralized way. Millions of people have used it this way, and were using it well before we sold any tokens to anyone. The SEC is completely ignoring this.”
The SEC’s failure-to-register enforcement action against LBRY is drawing widespread criticism from crypto lawyers a… https://t.co/DnA5BxrnGR
— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky)
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Learn more:
– US Congress Now Aims At Decentralized Services Too
– A Look Into the Trending Decentralized Social Media Experience: Mastodon
– Can’t Beat Crypto Regulators? Educate Them
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(Updated at 19:49 UTC with a tweet.)
