The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Bored Ape NFT to determine whether these assets can be considered securities.
It is good to know that the SEC’s investigation will not necessarily be followed by legal proceedings. But the language used may cause Yuga Labs to fear some legal trouble, such as that currently facing Ripple (XRP).
Indeed, Yuga Labs, the company behind the popular non-fungible token NFT collection Bored Ape Yatch Club (BAYC), is facing an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bloomberg reports, citing people close to the matter.
Officially, however, Yuga Labs remains measured, with a particularly sober statement:
“It is common knowledge that policymakers and regulators are looking to learn more about the new world of Web3. We hope to partner with the rest of the industry and regulators to define and shape this emerging ecosystem.”
The SEC is also looking into the most recent distribution of ApeCoin (APE), the project’s native token, made in March via its decentralized autonomous organization ApeCoin DAO. In recent years, the SEC has sued several startups in the industry for failing to report their digital coin sales. The regulator considers a number of cryptocurrencies to be securities, requiring their issuers to follow the same rules as for stock transfers.
Consequentially, the crypto ApeCoin (APE) lost 10% of its value on Tuesday (11) just minutes after Bloomberg broke the news.
