Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.

What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, March 19th, and today we are talking about the SEC being sanctioned.

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Hello, friends, happy first day of spring.

Of course, it being the first day of spring means that here in New York, we are getting a cold snap and a snowstorm, but what are you going to do?

We kick off today with a story that we have been tracking for some time, which is the case of

SEC versus Debtbox.

What has made this case interesting is less anything having to do with

Debtbox itself and more the fact that the SEC's behavior in the case has been a major point

of scrutiny and consternation. The latest update is that a federal court in Utah has imposed

sanctions on the SEC for their conduct in this crypto lawsuit. The judge said that their behavior

constituted a, quote,

gross abuse of the power entrusted to it by Congress. The case is, of course, an enforcement action

brought against a crypto project called Debtbox, which was launched in December 2021, and was alleged

to have raised $50 million for a token-based crypto mining scheme. In July of last year, the SEC alleged

securities fraud and rushed to court to obtain a

temporary restraining order or TRO. They wanted to freeze bank accounts owned by the project and its founders.

The regulator claimed that debt box were closing bank accounts had already transferred $720,000

out of the country and were planning to flee the country. The SEC argued that the project

...