The US Securities and Exchange Commission has officially closed its research to Yuga Labs, the company behind the bored Ape Yacht Club and Cyberpunks NFT collections.
The regulator does not intend to take further enforcement actions and has not filled the indictments against the company. In a social media post on March 3, Yuga Labs said that the closure was a victory for makers and NFTs.
It explained:
“After 3+ years, the SEC officially closed its investigation into Yuga Labs. This is a huge victory for NFTs and all makers push our ecosystem ahead. NFTs are not effects. “
Yuga Labs -Sound
The SEC had launched his probe in Yuga Labs in October 2022. The agency had investigated whether certain NFTs could be classified as effects according to federal legislation.
In particular, the SEC reportedly investigated whether the NFT collections of Yuga Labs, including Bored Ape Yacht Club and related assets, were brought to the market in a way that could be considered a investment contract under the Howey test.
The agency has also investigated the sale of Apecoin (APE) of the company, a crypto associated with the Bayc -Ecosystem, to determine whether it fell under securities instructions.
With the decision of the SEC to close the case without any charges, Yuga Labs and the NFT industry generally see the move as an important legal victory.
The decision provides some clarity for NFT makers and market places, although broader questions about the classification of digital assets remain unsolved.
Multiple cases closed
The decision to end Yuga Labs’ investigation comes in the midst of a Gulf of SEC Doorlas closures in the crypto sector under new leadership appointed by the Trump government.
In recent days, the agency has also dropped research into Robinhood, Gemini, Uniswap Labs, Consensys and OpenSea. In the meantime, the SEC has arranged lawsuits with Coinbase and Kraken and is reportedly on the way to a resolution with Tron founder Justin Sun.
This legal shift follows years of control of the SEC, which has performed his enforcement actions against digital activa companies under chairman Gary Gensler.
The agency had argued that many crypto assets, including certain NFTs, met the definition of securities under the Howey test, a legal standard that was used to determine whether an active fall under SEC jurisdiction.
Industrie leaders, however, have pushed back against this classification, with the argument that Digital Property represented instead of investment contracts.
Despite the recent resignation of the SEC, the long -term lawsuit against Ripple remains in active lawsuits.