Legal Expert: SEC v. Green United Targets Specific Fraudulent Behavior

On September 29th, the SEC's lawsuit against crypto firm GreenUnited, which it accused of defrauding investors out of $18 million through the sale of so-called “GreenBoxes” mining equipment, recently drew industry attention. Last week, a federal judge denied GreenUnited's request to dismiss the case, prompting speculation on social media that sales of crypto mining hardware could be considered securities. However, several legal experts say there's no reason to be overly concerned at this point, with Ishmael Green, a partner at the law firm DiazReus, noting that as long as the mining equipment was sold with the understanding that the end user would do the mining, there would be no problem. ” 
In the Green United case, the sales agreement for the mining equipment stated that Green United would control and run the system, and that was the issue.” Hadas Jacobi, a consultant at ReedSmith Law Firm, said that even though the SEC did not explicitly mention escrow mining, this could have implications for escrow mining services. Despite Green United's attempts to characterize the case as a misunderstanding of hosted mining by the SEC, the judge denied its request to dismiss the case. The judge has only decided to hear the case and has not ruled on the SEC's arguments.