The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has officially closed its investigation into Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Apes Yacht Club NFT collection.
The regulator will take no enforcement action and has not issued any charges against the firm. Yuga Labs confirmed the news in a Mar. 3 post on X, calling it a “huge win” for the NFT industry and creators. The company added, “NFTs are not securities.”
The SEC launched its probe into Yuga Labs in October 2022 to determine whether its NFT collections and ApeCoin (APE), a token linked to BAYC, should be classified as securities under the Howey Test. The inquiry was part of a larger campaign against NFTs led by former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, which also targeted NFT markets and fractionalized NFTs.
For Yuga Labs and the larger NFT industry, the SEC’s decision to close the case without filing any charges is viewed as a major regulatory win. The SEC has dropped other investigations involving cryptocurrency companies in recent weeks, which coincides with the decision to conclude the Yuga Labs inquiry.
The agency recently settled litigation with Coinbase and Kraken and concluded investigations into OpenSea, Robinhood, Gemini, and Uniswap Labs. The market anticipates that the regulatory shift will have a positive impact on the BAYC NFTS floor price, which is currently trading around13.75 Ethereum (ETH), down more than 90% from its peak of 153.7 ETH in May 2022.
Meanwhile, on March 3, the SEC’s Crypto Task Force revealed on the regulator’s official website that it will be holding a number of roundtables for the public called “Spring Sprint Toward Crypto Clarity.” The goal of these roundtables is to establish more precise rules pertaining to digital assets.
The first event, “How We Got Here and How We Get Out – Defining Security Status,” is set for March 21 from 17:00 to 21:00 UTC. These talks will explore important issues in crypto regulation and signal how the agency is changing its stance on digital assets.
