United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Hester Peirce said many non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including those with mechanisms to pay creator royalties, likely fall outside the purview of federal securities laws.

In a recent speech, Peirce said NFTs that allow artists to earn resale revenue do not automatically qualify as securities. Unlike stocks, NFTs are programmable assets that distribute proceeds to developers or artists. The SEC official said that mirrors how streaming platforms compensate musicians and filmmakers. 

“Just as streaming platforms pay royalties to the creator of a song or video each time a user plays it, an NFT can enable artists to benefit from the appreciation in the value of their work after its initial sale,” Peirce said. 

Peirce added that the feature does not provide NFT owners any rights or interest in any business enterprise or profits “traditionally associated with securities.”

SEC never prohibited NFT royalties

Oscar Franklin Tan, chief legal officer of Enjin core contributor Atlas Development Services, told Cointelegraph that the recent remarks by Peirce on NFTs and creator royalties have been widely misunderstood. 

Peirce had clarified that NFTs that send resale royalties to artists are not necessarily securities, a view Tan says is legally sound but mischaracterized in some media reports. 

“So Hester Peirce said that an NFT that sends royalties back to the creator after a sale is not a security. This is correct, but the way some media reported this is completely out of context,” Tan told Cointelegraph. “The actual context is that this is not controversial, and it was never considered a security.”

The lawyer said US securities law focuses on regulating investments and not compensating creators for their work.

“The artist or creator is not an investor, not a passive third party in the NFT,” he said, noting that royalty payments are not considered investment income. 

Instead, Tan told Cointelegraph that this type of earning is “analogous to business income,” which the SEC does not regulate. He added: 

“The SEC never prohibited contracts where artists and creators get royalties from secondary sales of their work, not royalties from paper contracts or blockchain protocols.”

Tan explained that the legal distinction becomes more complicated when NFTs promise shared profits from royalties to multiple holders beyond the original creator. 

Tan also urged regulators and market participants to apply traditional legal reasoning to new blockchain technologies. “Ask yourself, if this were done by pen and paper instead of blockchain, would there still be a regulatory issue?” he said. “If none, slow down.”

Source: Oscar Franklin Tan

Related: SEC charges Unicoin crypto platform over alleged $100 million fraud

OpenSea calls on the SEC to exempt NFT marketplaces from oversight

While NFT royalties may not have been a controversial SEC issue, NFT marketplaces are a different case. In August 2024, NFT trading platform OpenSea received a Wells notice from the SEC, alleging that NFTs traded on the marketplace could qualify as unregistered securities. 

On Feb. 22, OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer announced that the SEC has officially closed its investigation into the platform. The executive said that this was a win for the industry. 

Following the conclusion of the SEC’s investigation, OpenSea’s lawyers penned a letter to Peirce, who leads the SEC’s Crypto Task Force. OpenSea general counsel Adele Faure and deputy general counsel Laura Brookover said in an April 9 letter that NFT marketplaces don’t qualify as brokers under US securities laws. 

The lawyers said the marketplaces don’t execute transactions or act as intermediaries. The lawyers urged the SEC to “clearly state that NFT marketplaces like OpenSea do not qualify as exchanges under federal securities laws.”

Magazine: NBA star Tristan Thompson misses $32B in Bitcoin by taking $82M contract in cash

Key points:

Bitcoin tags $108,000 for the first time since the day of its current all-time highs in January.

Traders and analysts mention support extending toward $90,000, but the probability of a retest is fading.

Near-term upside targets include a “blow-off top” at $128,000.

Bitcoin (BTC) spiked to more than $108,000 on May 21, marking new four-month highs — where will BTC/USD go next?

Crypto traders and analysts are lining up their forecasts with BTC price action less than 1.5% away from new all-time highs.

BTC price support test now “less likely”

Bitcoin continues to coil below what is now its most significant psychological resistance barrier — January’s all-time highs.

BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

At $109,356 on Bitstamp, per data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, that seminal line in the sand is what bulls are attempting to bring back into play this week.

Volatility is picking up — BTC/USD dropped almost $1,000 in minutes following its move past $108,000, with traders attempting to position around the spot price.

GM $BTC shorted. pic.twitter.com/nVfYKuNhu1

— BrutalBTC (@BrutalBtc) May 21, 2025

Order book liquidity data from monitoring resource CoinGlass showed thickening bid support just below $106,000 at the time of writing.

BTC liquidation heatmap (screenshot). Source: CoinGlass

Commenting, Keith Alan, co-founder of trading resource Material Indicators, highlighted several moving averages (MAs), the $100,000 mark, and the 2025 yearly open as potential long-term support retest zones.

The highest of these, the 21-day MA, stood at $101,640 on the day.

“The 50-Day MA is on a trajectory to Golden Cross with the 200-Day MA in a tight range that has confluence with the Trend Line AND the 2025 YO,” he wrote in part of his latest post on X. 

“You can’t really ask for stronger technical support than that.”

Alan argued that a deeper retracement to support would strengthen Bitcoin’s overall recovery and help boost the odds of holding higher levels going forward.

“I’d personally consider a dump to that level a gift, but at this point I don’t think it’s a likely one. In fact the further the 21-Day MA (green) gets from $100k, the less likely we are to get the support test I’ve been looking for,” he concluded. 

“Whether BTC retests $100k or not, I’m happy to see consolidation in this range before the next leg up.”BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Keith Alan/X

Traders expect Bitcoin to go toward $128,000 next

Crypto trader, analyst and entrepreneur Michaël van de Poppe held similar views on support levels to hold.

Related: Sorry bears — Bitcoin analysis dismisses $107K BTC price double top

Both $91,800 and $100,700 feature in his latest analysis, with the latter described as a “point of interest.”

“It’s always a good morning with Bitcoin at $108,000 and close to a new ATH,” he summarized on the day.

BTC/USDT 12-hour chart with RSI data. Source: Michaël van de Poppe/X

In a separate X post, Van de Poppe said that new all-time highs were approaching “faster than he expected.”

$120,000, he argued, was one of several “imminent” targets extending up to $200,000.

Elsewhere, popular trader Merlijn agreed with $116,000 as the next short-term BTC price target, seeing BTC/USD “exploding” out of a consolidation pennant. 

MASSIVE BULLISH BITCOIN PENNANT BREAKOUT!$BTC coiled for days now it’s exploding.

This pennant points to $116K… and it’s just getting started.

Ride the wave or watch it fly. pic.twitter.com/lyox33TJp4

— Merlijn The Trader (@MerlijnTrader) May 21, 2025

Fellow trader Henry meanwhile upped the target to $128,000 as a “blow-off top” while also identifying support areas at $105,000 and $96,000.

BTC/USD 1-day chart. Source: Henry/X

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Mobile-first crypto exchange and payment platform Crypto.com has secured a license allowing it to offer cryptocurrency financial derivatives in the European Economic Area.

According to a May 21 announcement, Crypto.com secured a Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) licence.

“We have already expanded our brand presence in Europe since receiving our MiCA licence and we now look forward to providing customers across the region even more ways to engage with our platform through these new offerings,” Crypto.com’s co-founder and CEO, Kris Marszalek, said.

Source: Crypto.com

The announcement follows Crypto.com receiving in-principle approval to operate across the European Union under a Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license in mid-January. The company received regulatory approval for its acquisition of Cyprus-based trading services firm A.N. Allnew Investments from the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC).

Crypto.com has not immediately answered Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

Related: Coinbase’s Deribit buy shows growing derivatives market

A popular strategy

This is not the first crypto company to have obtained a MiFID license by acquiring a Cyprus-based financial firm in recent times. On May 20, cryptocurrency exchange Kraken announced the launch of regulated derivatives trading on its platform under the European Union’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II).

Like Crypto.com, a Cyprus-based entity plays a role in the strategy, with Kraken relying on MiFID II-regulated entity Payward Europe Digital Solutions to offer its derivatives. The launch follows Kraken completing its acquisition of the futures trading platform NinjaTrader earlier in May as its first-quarter revenue jumped 19% year-on-year to $471.7 million.

Related: CFTC mulling probe of Crypto.com over Super Bowl contracts: Report

Crypto derivatives are all the rage

Recently, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said his firm will continue to look for merger and acquisition opportunities, after acquiring crypto derivatives platform Deribit. The comments came after the publicly listed US crypto exchange earlier this month agreed to acquire Deribit, one of the world’s biggest crypto derivatives trading platforms.

Major crypto exchange Gemini has also recently received regulatory approval to expand crypto derivatives trading across Europe. Lastly, decentralized finance platform Synthetix also plans to venture further into crypto derivatives with plans to re-acquire the crypto options platform Derive.

Crypto.com has also gone through its fair share of acquisitions. Those include Fintek Securities Pty., Charterprime, Orion Principals and SEC-registered broker-dealer Watchdog Capital.

Magazine: How crypto laws are changing across the world in 2025