File-sharing protocol LBRY, once defeated by the SEC, appeals previous decisions
Date: 2023-09-09 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: IN WORLD
The LBRY platform, which has a decentralized exchange network (file sharing), announced on September 7 its intention to challenge the outcome of the trial with securities regulators.
In 2021, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) brought charges against LBRY, alleging that it offered its token on the market for an unregistered security.
Ultimately, the agency obtained summary judgment in November 2022 that could have forced LBRY to pay a $22 million fine. Despite this, LBRY continued to struggle with this result in the following month. The SEC ultimately reduced LBRY's fine to $111,614 in May 2023 due to the project's lack of finances and its near-defunct status.
Freestar
The case appears to have concluded in July 2023. LBRY announced the final decision and said that it will begin to wind down in about a month. Although the project's website remained active, its Twitter/X account stopped releasing new content on July 27th.
On September 7, it was announced that the project had filed an appeal of the SEC's decision. But the account came back to life again. Apart from the contents of this court application, LBRY will challenge the court's previous final decision.
Positive news could probably help the native LBRY token a little. The price of LBC increased from $0.0123 to $0.0028 in a few minutes on September 8, which represents a 4% increase in price. Overall, this growth has been marginal: at the time of writing, LBC has fallen almost 5% in 24 hours. At the same time, the crypto market decreased by only 0 ̧9%.
SEC Resistance Is Growing
LBRY has not disclosed the reason why it decided to continue fighting the SEC. However, the past few months have brought positive results for other crypto firms dealing with the SEC. In July, Ripple claimed a partial legal victory, refuting SEC filings that said its sales of XRP constituted a securities offering. Despite the SEC's plans to appeal the result, Ripple's earlier result may have created more resistance.
Grayscale won a sectional victory over the SEC in August. As a consequence of this result, the SEC will likely force a review of Grayscale's ETF application. However, Grayscale's case is significantly different because it does not involve a token sale.
