Filecoin (FIL) in SEC’s crosshairs, Grayscale alerts

Offered by Grayscale through its trusts, Filecoin (FIL) has been added to the list of tokens suspected by the SEC to be titles (securities). The asset manager refutes this qualification.

Have the SEC teams identified a new token that could be recharacterized as a security ? This is what the press release published by Grayscalethe manager of crypto funds, including the Bitcoin Trust.

Already under investigation by the U.S. regulator over several tokens, Grayscale began registering a new trust in April with the underlying asset of WIRE of Filecoin.

FIL, New SEC Target

On May 16, the company received a letter from the SEC. According to the agency’s staff:

The token meets the definition of a security under the federal securities laws and that, therefore, the Trust appears to meet the definition of an investment company.”

“The SEC staff has asked Grayscale to promptly withdraw the registration statement,” the firm continued. In its statement, the firm however, disputes the reclassification of the FIL.

Grayscale thus announces its intention “to respond promptly to the SEC staff with an explanation of the legal basis” for its position. The manager warns that if no agreement is reached, dissolution of the Trust may be necessary.

PoS tokens attacked and recharacterized

This new episode illustrates the will of the SEC to requalify a large number of tokens in securities. In 2022, U.S. authority proceedings targeted three trusts related to the cryptocurrencies Stellar (XLM), Zcash (ZEC) and Horizen (ZEN).

Since then, the authority has opened new fronts against other tokens and crypto services, including those related to staking. Kraken has been fined and forced to withdraw its product in the US. Coinbase is the subject of a lawsuit.

If companies complain about a lack of legal clarity, this argument is brushed aside by the SEC chairman, Gary Genslerwho has already suggested that a large part of the tokens (especially PoS) are securities.

Crypto markets suffer from a lack of compliance with regulation. It’s not a lack of legal clarity,” the executive said. Questioned in the US Congress about the status of ETH, he had systematically evaded.

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