The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, a prominent and powerful court that has brought numerous high-profile crypto-related cases, plans to cut back on cases related to crypto, according to one of its top prosecutors.
That doesn't mean prosecutors there will disregard crypto cases, but fewer people will be working on them compared to 2022, Scott Hartman, co-chief of the securities and commodities fraud task force at the Manhattan Court said during a Practising Law Institute conference on Friday, according to reporting from Reuters.
"You won't see as much crypto stuff coming out of at least the SDNY in the future," Hartman said at the conference.
Prosecutors in Manhattan brought several high-profile cases against crypto industry players including against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried and Celsius founder Alexander Mashinsky. Both firms filed for bankruptcy in 2022.
Hartman's comments come a day after President-elect Donald Trump tapped Jay Clayton to lead that office as Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Clayton previously served as chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from 2017 to 2020 and led the agency through the initial coin offering boom of 2017-2018. During that time, his office filed several high-profile lawsuits against prominent and lowly crypto projects. Before leaving the SEC, charges were filed against Ripple. The SEC accused the firm of raising $1.3 billion through the sale of XRP, which the agency says is an unregistered security. The case is ongoing after a New York judge gave both parties a partial win and both have filed appeals.
SDNY's Hartman also said on Friday that SDNY knows that its "regulatory partners are very active in this space." Both the U.S. SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have brought numerous cases involving crypto over the years, including against FTX, Binance and other crypto entities.
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