Hester Peirce, a commissioner for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), dissented from the agency’s case against LBRY on Oct. 27.
LBRY Inc., the firm behind the LBRY blockchain and content-sharing network, announced on Oct. 19 that it would not appeal its loss in the case, marking a formal end of proceedings. The firm will instead shut down and enter receivership in order to pay millions of dollars of debts to various parties, including the SEC.
Peirce questioned the value of this outcome, writing:
“Are investors and the market really better off now after the Commission’s litigation contributed to the demise of a company that had built a functioning blockchain with a real-world application running on top of it?”
She added that the case “illustrates the arbitrariness and real-life consequences” of the SEC’s regulation by enforcement approach toward the crypto sector.
Importantly, Peirce emphasized that the SEC did not allege that LBRY committed fraud. She noted that, unlike many other projects, LBRY did not fail to meet its promises. Instead, Peirce said, the project had a functional blockchain during most of its token sales, and its content-sharing platform was not only operational but popular.
Peirce added that the SEC took an “extremely hardline” approach: it sought $44 million in penalties, demanded LBRY burn all tokens in possession, and said that these remedies alone would
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Author: Mike Dalton