New Crypto Litigation Tracker Lists 300 Cases From SafeMoon to Pepe the Frog

A new encrypted litigation tracker from commercial law firm Morrison Cohen LLP shows details of more than 300 active and resolved court cases since 2013.

Morrison Cohen is a New York-based firm serving large financial institutions, entrepreneurs and early-growth companies with a focus on capital markets, commercial litigation, real estate and bankruptcy. The firm also has a cryptocurrency litigation team.

The Morrison Cohen Cryptocurrency Litigation Tracker was released on May 3rd and contains developments in any case related to the SEC, CFTC, DOJ, and class/private actions .

The company says it will regularly update the tracker, which “will include key rulings in these lawsuits,” as well as a series of “articles, webinars, and podcasts,” as well as cryptocurrency regulatory announcements from various government agencies.

According to the tracker (essentially a lengthy pdf document), around 17 crypto cases have either been brought to court or settled so far in 2022.​

The SEC, CFTC, and DOJ have been involved in a total of seven cases, some of the high-profile cases being SEC v. Barksdale siblings for their alleged $124 million ICO fraud, and SEC v. Digital asset platform BlockFi has agreed to pay a $100 million fine for failing to register its crypto lending product.

Most notable, however, is the ongoing Justice Department v. Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan case. The couple is accused of conspiring to launder money in the 2016 Bitfinex hack in which 119,756 bitcoins were stolen. U.S. Department of Justice agents seized 94,000 bitcoins when they were arrested in February.

There may be more work to be done this year, considering the SEC announced this week that it will increase the number of staff in its law enforcement-focused “Crypto Assets & Cyber ​​Unit” to 50 dedicated positions.

However, of the class/private suits, where most lawsuits have ended, SafeMoon has attracted the most attention as the team has been hit with a class action lawsuit alleging it ran a pump and dump scheme.

The class-action lawsuit claims that the project recruited a large number of celebrities to attract investors with so-called misleading information. Nick Carter, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty and other musicians and YouTube celebrities Jake Paul and Ben Phillips have all claimed to have promoted the BNB-based platform. Chain's token.

The Halston Thayer v. Matt Furie, Chain/Saw LL and PegzDAO case that occurred in March of this year seems to be a unique and little-known case.

Three defendants — including Furie, creator of the beloved Pepe the Frog meme — have been charged with fraudulent deception after they allegedly sold an NFT whose value plummeted after releasing the same NFT for free.

"Plaintiff alleges defendants fraudulently misrepresented the value of the Pepe the Frog NFT. Plaintiff purchased a Pepe the Frog NFT created by Furie for $537,084 and sold it through PegzDAO. Weeks after the sale, PegzDAO released 46 of the same NFT for free , which allegedly reduced the value of the plaintiff’s NFT,” Morrison Cohen wrote.

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