SEC, Helium lawsuit abruptly withdrawn…HNT Jumps 10%

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officially withdrew the unregistered securities lawsuit it had filed against Helium (HNT), causing HNT prices to surge.

On the 12th (local time), Nova Labs, the developer of Helium, announced via social media that the lawsuit with the SEC had been ‘dismissed with prejudice’. ‘Dismissed’ means that the same case cannot be refiled. Under this agreement, Nova Labs paid $200,000 under the condition of not admitting legal responsibility, and the SEC recognized that HNT, along with MOBILE and IOT tokens and Helium Hotspot distribution, are not securities.

This decision is expected to set an important precedent for the entire decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) ecosystem of cryptocurrency projects based on physical infrastructure, like Helium. Helium stated that this result proves that "token distribution and hardware sales are not automatically classified as securities," and evaluated that it will have a positive impact on the digital asset industry overall.

With this news, HNT prices surged nearly 10%, rising from $2.62 to $3.03. Currently, it is trading at around $2.96 after some adjustments.

This withdrawal of the lawsuit coincides with a trend of the SEC retreating from its hardline stance on the cryptocurrency industry after President Donald Trump's inauguration. Recently, the SEC also withdrew lawsuits against Kraken, Coinbase, Robinhood, OpenSea, and MetaMask. There is growing expectation in the cryptocurrency industry that this change could lead to the establishment of a clearer regulatory environment.