The Blockchain Association, a major United States-based trade clan in the crypto sphere, has filed a new brief in support of Telegram amid the firm's standing legal battle with the Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC).

The amicus brief and the SEC's lack of clarity

The April 3 brief takes the SEC to task for backtracking on its ain guidance for legally distributing digital assets.

Referring to the inconsistency that issuers of digital avails must cope with when dealing with the SEC, the brief says that "No settled precedent or agency rulemaking addressed whether and when digital avails amounted to securities."

As to Telegram'south particular conundrum, the brief reads: "the enforcement posture in this case, and the commune court'southward position, run the opposite direction of the Committee'southward prior statements."

The brief emphasizes Telegram'southward efforts to work to the SEC'south expectations

When the SEC initially sought an emergency activeness confronting Telegram, the firm argued that information technology had filed for an exemption nether Regulation D. Reg. D allows firms to sell shares to investors that meet certain criteria without having to study to the full extent required of publicly traded firms.

The brief argues that Telegram was clearly trying to operate within the SEC's expectations, including based on the SAFT (Unproblematic Agreement for Future Tokens) framework. SAFT aims to allow tokens to exist sold via investment contracts that are securities, with the acknowledgment that the tokens themselves "demand not exist securities themselves." In Telegram'southward case, this is the SEC'south objection:

"The Committee'south statements have expressly encouraged this [SAFT] model and its reliance on Regulation D individual placements. Innovators and developers unsurprisingly relied on these statements, only to be surprised with enforcement deportment."

For Telegram, this surprise stung. The SEC ordered its initial halt on GRAM token distribution weeks before information technology was scheduled and after the visitor had raised over $1.7 billion from their sale. The brief cites this act as unfair:

"To ignore the Commission'due south prior statements and allow information technology enjoin close down the delivery of Grams — at bang-up cost to Telegram, the investors, and many other projects — constitutes just the sort of 'unfair surprise' that an bureau should non be permitted to jump on the public."

An amicus cursory — coming from the phrase "amicus curiae," Latin for a friend of the courtroom — is a ways for an entity exterior of a legal instance to weigh in on the subject area. The Blockchain Association is non itself political party to the case.

Where SEC v. Telegram stands currently

The Blockchain Association'south new brief comes amongst a series of decisions against Telegram — about recently, the judge in the instance denying the house's ability to distribute its TON tokens exterior of the U.S.

Some within the SEC are looking to change these frameworks more formally. In Feb, Commissioner Hester Peirce proposed a new framework that lays out a safe harbor for tokens to launch in a centralized manner as long as they demonstrate decentralization within 3 years. The rubber harbor would keep the SEC from pursuing tokens that successfully become "non-securities" in that timeframe.