According to BlockBeats, on August 1, two American artists filed a lawsuit with the U.S. SEC on Monday, seeking a declaratory judgment from the Louisiana court that their upcoming NFT project would not violate U.S. securities laws.
The scathing complaint, filed in the notoriously anti-regulatory Fifth Circuit, accuses the SEC of using two 2023 lawsuits targeting NFT projects — Impact Theory and Stoner Cats — without congressional authorization. law enforcement action to assert its jurisdiction over the entire NFT industry.
The lawsuit alleges that, according to SEC Chairman Gensler, the regulator "took an extremely broad look at its own authority in the context of digital assets" and failed to make clear to NFT artists under what circumstances the issuance and sale of NFTs might constitute an issuance or sale of securities.
In bringing NFTs into its regulatory purview through enforcement actions, the SEC has failed to effectively address the potentially far-reaching implications of applying securities laws to art.