The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed to drop another of its crypto lawsuits, this time its unregistered securities sales case against crypto influencer and YouTuber Ian Balina. 

The SEC said in a May 1 joint stipulation with Balina to an Austin federal court that it “believes the dismissal of this case is appropriate,” citing the work of the agency’s Crypto Task Force.

The agency didn’t give a reason for wanting to dismiss its case, but said its decision “does not necessarily reflect the Commission’s position on any other case.”

Balina told Cointelegraph in March that the SEC had informed him it would recommend the court dismiss the case and claimed the agency’s actions were based on a shift in the agency’s priorities.

“Obviously, the new administration is pro-crypto,” Balina said. The SEC has seen a change in leadership under US President Donald Trump, who appointed former crypto lobbyist Paul Atkins to chair the agency.

The joint stipulation argued a dismissal would also conserve the court’s resources “without costs or fees to either party.”

Balina is the CEO of Token Metrics, a crypto influencer with 140,000 followers on X, and a YouTuber who the SEC accused of improperly promoting crypto projects, particularly during the initial coin offering (ICO) boom circa 2017.

The SEC sued Balina in 2022, alleging that he conducted an unregistered securities offering of Sparkster (SPRK) tokens when he formed an investing pool on Telegram in 2018.

The SEC claimed that US-based investors participated in Balina’s investing pool, using Ether (ETH), which was validated by a network of nodes “which are clustered more densely in the United States than in any other country.”

Related: SEC drops investigation into PayPal’s stablecoin

The court sided with the SEC and, in May 2024, ruled that SPRK was an investment contract under US securities laws, where investors pooled money into a common enterprise expecting profits due to the efforts of others.

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Shift in crypto policy

The move is the latest in a long list of crypto-related court actions that the SEC has quashed under the Trump administration’s favorable stance toward the industry. 

Over the past month, it has dropped several cases and abandoned multiple investigations against crypto firms, including against Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, Opensea, and PayPal’s stablecoin. 

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US crypto exchange Kraken has detailed a North Korean hacker’s attempt to infiltrate the organization by applying for a job interview.

“What started as a routine hiring process for an engineering role quickly turned into an intelligence-gathering operation,” the company wrote in a May 1 blog post.

Kraken said the applicant’s red flags appeared early on in the process when they joined an interview under a name different from what they applied with and “occasionally switched between voices,” apparently being guided through the interview.

Rather than immediately rejecting the applicant, Kraken decided to advance them through its hiring process to gather information about the tactics used.

International sanctions have effectively cut North Korea off from the rest of the world, and the country’s ruling Kim family dictatorship has long targeted crypto companies and users to top up the country’s coffers. It’s stolen billions worth of crypto so far this year.

Kraken reported that industry partners had tipped them off that North Korean actors were actively applying for jobs at crypto companies. 

“We received a list of email addresses linked to the hacker group, and one of them matched the email the candidate used to apply to Kraken,” it said. 

With this information, the firm’s security team uncovered a network of fake identities used by the hacker to apply to multiple companies. 

Kraken also noted technical inconsistencies, which included the use of remote Mac desktops through VPNs and altered identification documents.

Kraken CSO @c7five recently spoke to @CBSNews about how a North Korean operative unsuccessfully attempted to get a job at Kraken.

Don’t trust. Verify pic.twitter.com/1vVo3perH2

— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) May 1, 2025

The applicant’s resume was linked to a GitHub profile containing an email address exposed in a past data breach, and the exchange said the candidate’s primary form of ID “appeared to be altered, likely using details stolen in an identity theft case two years prior.”

During final interviews, Kraken chief security officer Nick Percoco conducted trap identity verification tests that the candidate failed, confirming the deception. 

Related: Lazarus Group’s 2024 pause was repositioning for $1.4B Bybit hack

“Don’t trust, verify. This core crypto principle is more relevant than ever in the digital age,” Peroco said. “State-sponsored attacks aren’t just a crypto or US corporate issue — they’re a global threat.”

North Korea pulls off biggest-ever crypto hack

North Korea-affiliated hacking collective Lazarus Group was responsible for February’s $1.4 billion Bybit exchange hack, the largest ever for the crypto industry.

North Korean-linked hackers also stole more than $650 million through multiple crypto heists during 2024, while deploying IT workers to infiltrate blockchain and crypto companies as insider threats, according to a statement released by the US, Japan and South Korea in January. 

In April, a subgroup of Lazarus was found to have set up three shell companies, with two in the US, to deliver malware to unsuspecting users and scam crypto developers. 

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Decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Sky has pitched a proposal to finalize its upgrade from Maker by replacing its governance token and enabling staking.

The proposal, posted on May 1 to Sky’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) forum, would see the Sky (SKY) token take over the Maker (MKR) token as the protocol’s governance token.

If the DAO accepts, the change would be slated to take place around May 15 to May 19 and downgrading from SKY to MKR would also be disabled.

Sky co-founder Rune Christensen said in response to the proposal that it was a “huge milestone,” which he “fully supports,” and laments that allowing users to downgrade from SKY back to MKR has been a “key limiting factor preventing exchanges from adopting SKY.”

“With this change, exchanges are likely to move faster in quickly adopting SKY without concerns about fracturing liquidity,” he said.

Source: Sky

Penalties on MKR holders who are slow in switching to SKY have also been proposed. 

According to the proposal, a 1% delayed upgrade penalty would apply to all MKR to SKY upgrades starting Sept. 18, increasing every three months. Users hit with a delayed upgrade penalty will also obtain fewer SKY tokens.

Sky staking, temporary pause on liquidations

Christensen said the most important change would be to see SKY staking enabled as part of the changes to the protocol.

Rewards for its decentralized stablecoin, USDS, which are based on the income the Sky Protocol generates, will be enabled two or three weeks after the upgrade of the governance contract, with a splitter rate of 50%, according to Christensen.

Source: Rune Christensen

“Getting past the full upgrade of MKR to SKY is one of the last pieces missing before Sky can transition to 0 fixed costs at the end of 2025, which will ensure an even greater portion of the income the protocol generates goes to the benefit of SKY buybacks, or SKY Staking Rewards,” he said.

SKY liquidations will also be temporarily disabled while the one-way MKR to SKY transition is still in its early stages.

Related: Sky doubles down on token overhaul: Making MKR unusable, launching subDAOs

“This is necessary to prevent risk from price manipulation to the SKY and MKR price while the transition is happening,” Christensen said.

“When SKY market liquidity is restored, Sky Governance will lift the liquidation freeze and move risk parameters to long-term targets,” he added.

Maker rebranded to Sky in August last year but after confusion and negative feedback, Christensen considered going back to the original Maker name just months later.

However, a November poll saw 79% of tokenholders vote to keep the Sky brand as the back end protocol brand with no further changes.

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