As a reminder, Judge Marreo has also previously allowed some unique tokens to be classified as securities. Specifically, it was about the NBA Top Shot platform from Dapper Labs, that is, NFTs based on popular moments in the basketball league.

Marreo felt that the unique tokens could allegedly be perceived as securities, and there are many questions to this assumption. Still, Dapper Labs representatives do not redistribute income to their users, meaning they do not share even a portion of the earnings. Accordingly, it is unlikely that buyers of NFTs would expect to receive a guaranteed income – which is precisely what is required for an asset to be recognised as a security.

In such a case, essentially all NFTs would be recognised as securities and trading platforms would be held liable for the unregistered distribution of such instruments. Naturally, this would mean a collapse for this crypto-sector in the US. Therefore, we want to believe that such a verdict will not come to fruition.

Now it turns out that Marreo has also made an emphasis on some emoji that were actively used in NBA Top Shot social media posts. According to a judicial spokesperson, they are clearly being used for a reason.

How cryptocurrencies are regulated

The judge’s words were mentioned in her tweet by Lisa Braganca, former head of one of the offices of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Here is her quote.

A federal judge ruled that emoji 🚀📈💰 can be objectively interpreted as “financial gain or investment”. Users of these emoji are hereby warned of the legal consequences of their use.

Braganka also posted a screenshot of tweets from the official NBA Top Shot account, where the emoji mentioned by the judge is used several times. Marreo used the tweets as an explanation for his position – these emoji allegedly “promise” Dapper Labs customers a profit, as they are used in a post about NFT token deals.

Here’s the judge’s quote on the matter.

And while the literal word “profit” is not in any of the tweets, the emoji “rocket”, “stock chart” and “money bag” objectively mean one thing – financial return on investment.

The judge is right here – these emoji are indeed designed to be associated with money and income. But is it possible to resort to such “totalitarian” methods of social media control?

According to NFT platform Enjin’s legal advisor Oscar Franklin Tan, Marreo has crossed the line. Here’s his pertinent rejoinder on the matter.

Courts should protect witty free messages in unique token fan communities because shiatposting and emoji are also part of free speech.

According to Cointelegraph sources, Marreo’s ruling has been received with humour in the cryptocurrency community. Here’s what a user nicknamed iamashchild tweeted about it.

I officially state that I used the emoji 🚀📈💰 in the following context: 🚀 is a rocket destroying good portfolio 📈 with money shifting in the rubbish bag 💰. In other words, the opposite of the concept of financial gain.

The community of crypto-enthusiasts on Twitter is a place of shiatposting – that is, useless banter, quick news and memes. It is a platform for completely free communication within the law. The attempt to ban certain emoji doesn’t even invite any serious criticism – it just seems like a rash decision by someone unfamiliar with the internet.

Meanwhile, representatives of Dapper Labs, which is known for its legendary NFT collections CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, have had problems. On the eve of its head Roham Garegozlow announced a staff reduction of 20 percent. This will come against the backdrop of a restructuring of the giant required “to strengthen its position”.

This round of redundancies is the second for Dapper Labs. The first was in November 2022, when staff were cut by 22 per cent. On that occasion, the company’s management claimed that it was growing too fast. To be more precise: the number of employees increased from 100 to 600 in the course of two years.


We believe that such a decision only shows how distant the judge is from what is happening on the internet and in the blockchain community. Yet members of the latter often use such emoji to show their enthusiasm for the future of their chosen project. And while they probably expect to increase the value of the asset in the future, it is an absurd idea to prosecute for the use of certain emoji. Hopefully it won't come to that.


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