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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has jurisdiction over a cryptocurrency at the centre of a Canadian-linked pump-and-dump, a U.S. federal judge has ruled. The SEC claims that a group of men, including Ontario's Troy Hogg, were behind a scheme with a virtual currency called DIG. The men touted DIG as being backed by $10-billion in gold bullion, and then unloaded $45-million worth of tokens, the SEC says. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)

The case has yet to go to trial, with some of the defendants complaining that the SEC has no jurisdiction over cryptocurrency. The digital tokens that they sold have none of the characteristics of a security, they contended. They further said that the SEC created needless uncertainty for investors in filing the case, and asked that the matter be dismissed, without a trial.

Unfortunately for the group, the judge has found that the DIG tokens do fall under the SEC's jurisdiction. The decision rests largely in legalese. In short, the SEC has the power to regulate anything that constitutes a security. The issue then becomes one of whether the DIG tokens could be defined as a security. To that end, there is a legal test that the judge applied, with the outcome falling entirely in the SEC's favour.

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