On July 25, 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") issued a report concluding that blockchain tokens offered and sold by "The DAO", a virtual organization, were securities and therefore subject to U.S. securities laws.
Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology, or "crypto-currency", which is increasingly used by emerging companies to conduct globally distributed crowd-sales, commonly known as "initial coin offerings", "ICOs", "initial token offerings" or "token sales".
While the SEC concluded that DAO's blockchain tokens were securities, the Report and a recent Ontario Securities Commission news release suggest that regulators are likely to determine whether a particular crypto-asset is deemed to be a security on a case-by-case basis.
BLG's Securities and Capital Markets Group has published a Bulletin authored by Andrew Bunston and Andrew McLean that provides further detail on this recent development.
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