Blockchain company LBRY, Inc. has hit dorsum at the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying a complaint filed against it threatens much of the crypto industry because information technology would define well-nigh tokens as securities.

The SEC has been looking into the blockchain-based publishing platform LBRY, Inc. as part of a iii-yr investigation that started in May 2018.

According to the complaint filed past the SEC, the platform is declared to have sold unregistered securities across multiple avenues including to institutional investors and platform users between 2016 and 2020.

The regulator is seeking a permanent injunction to prevent the company from selling more tokens, disgorgement of all funds received with interest, and to pay an undisclosed amount in ceremonious penalties.

LBRY developed a decentralized video sharing platform called Odysee that allows viewers to "earn cryptocurrency for watching videos" and for creators to earn LBRY Credits for their piece of work. Since 2016, xiii million LBC tokens were sold for $five 1000000 in Bitcoin. A press release from the SEC states the total amount raised was $eleven million, including USD and services from purchasers who participated in its offering.

According to LBRY, while information technology did not acquit an initial coin offer (ICO) and the SEC is not alleging fraud, its attempts to settle have been rejected past the Commission:

"The SEC declined to offer any terms that would have made it viable for U.S. citizens to exchange tokens or to allow LBRY Inc to continue to operate. We were willing to give them a pound of flesh, but they were only interested in our head."

Despite already spending "more than $1 million on legal fees" and the momentous effort of "several thousand hours of squad members' fourth dimension" during the investigation, the visitor is not backing down, stating: "The SEC is advancing an aggressive and disastrous new standard that would make almost all blockchain tokens securities."

"Classifying all actively-developed blockchain tokens equally securities will be a bureaucratic nightmare for United states of america residents and businesses operating in the US."

A petition on its website "helplbrysavecrypto.com" with more than than 6,700 signatures to engagement calls on "the SEC to drop this example and establish clear standards for the cryptocurrency industry in the United States."

LBRY claims that when information technology asked the SEC how it could operate legally, it was told that the regulatory body could not suggest on that and could only say that they were breaking the law.

Still the business firm stated that should the SEC succeed in shutting downwards LBRY, Inc., the LBRY platform and ecosystem will remain unaffected equally it is fully decentralized with "hundreds of people beyond six continents," about of which are non LBRY employees, contributing to the network in 2020.