LBRY pens final words after losing fight against the SEC: "Thank you to everyone who fought with us for online freedom."

LBRY Inc., the company behind the LBRY blockchain and the Odysee video‑sharing platform, has issued a final farewell message announcing that it is shutting down after losing its long-running securities case against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In March 2021 the SEC sued LBRY, alleging that its sale of LBRY Credits (LBC) from 2016 to 2021 was an unregistered offering of crypto asset securities in violation of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act. In November 2022, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire granted summary judgment to the SEC, holding that LBC were securities under the Howey test and that LBRY had fair notice of its obligations. In July 2023 the court imposed a civil penalty of $111,614, permanently enjoined LBRY from future unregistered offerings, and barred it from violating the registration provisions again. Following the judgment and mounting debts to the SEC, legal counsel, and other creditors, LBRY announced it would not appeal, would wind down operations, and would place its assets—reported to include Odysee and related intellectual property—into receivership to satisfy creditors. LBRY’s public “final words” frame the shutdown as the end of an organization but not of the open‑source protocol, emphasizing that the LBRY network and Odysee platform can in principle continue under new ownership or community stewardship. The case is widely cited in U.S. crypto law because it is one of the SEC’s early courtroom wins against a blockchain issuer and the first federal decision finding a token sold outside of an ICO to be a security, reinforcing the agency’s broad view that many token distributions fall under securities regulation. It is seen as a cautionary precedent for crypto projects that raise funds through token sales without registering or securing exemptions.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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