Nova Labs, the parent company behind the Helium blockchain, has agreed to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) $200,000 to settle civil securities fraud charges the regulator filed against the firm in January, a court filing said Thursday.

Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing, Nova Labs agreed to pay the fine to settle accusations that it misled institutional investors during a funding round from late 2021 to early 2022, during which it raised $200 million in fresh capital at a $1 billion valuation. In its complaint, the SEC accused Nova Labs of lying to prospective investors about a number of big-name enterprise customers — including Nestle, Salesforce and Lime — it claimed were using the Helium technology.

The SEC accused Nova Labs of repeatedly exaggerating the nature of its relationships with these three corporations in order to secure investments, touting them as customers and “users” of its tech. According to the complaint, Nova Labs’ actual contact with Lime, Salesforce and Nestle was limited and primarily occurred before the launch of the Helium network in mid-2019.

For example, according to the SEC, the extent of Nestle’s relationship with Nova Labs was a small-scale test of some of the company’s component hardware in its water-delivery business in 2018, before Nova Labs was even in the crypto business. Its relationship with scooter company Lime was limited to two in-person demonstrations of Nova Labs’ component hardware to an audience of just two Lime employees — at least one of whom left the company shortly afterwards —in early 2019, the SEC said.

Both Nestle and Lime eventually sent Nova Labs cease-and-desist orders, according to the SEC, threatening the company with legal action if it continued to use their trademarks and otherwise claiming to have an ongoing relationship with them, the complaint alleged.

As part of Nova Labs’ settlement agreement with the SEC, the regulator agreed to drop two other claims that the company violated federal securities laws, including through the sale of three of its tokens — the Helium Network Token (HNT), the Helium Mobile Network Token (MOBILE) and the Helium IoT Network Token (IOT) — which the SEC alleged in January to be securities, according the settlement agreement. Those claims were dropped with prejudice, meaning the SEC is barred from bringing a future case under the same allegations.

Nova Labs celebrated the settlement in a Thursday blog post, calling it a “major win for Helium and the People’s Network.”

“With this dismissal, we can now definitively say that all compatible Helium Hotspots and the distribution of HNT, IOT and MOBILE tokens through the Helium Network are not securities,” the blog post said. “The outcome establishes that selling hardware and distributing tokens for network growth does not automatically make them securities in the eyes of the SEC.”

The blog post made no mention of the $200,000 settlement or the claim that Nova Labs misled investors.

When reached for comment, Nova Labs Chief Legal Officer Sarah Aberg told CoinDesk that while the settlement agreement prohibits the company from either admitting or denying the claims, “we can point out that, both at the time of those statements and today, data usage on the Helium Network has always been publicly available.”

The settlement agreement, filed in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) on Thursday, is subject to approval by a federal judge.

Crypto companies issuing or dealing with tokens that may be securities should provide detailed disclosures, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Thursday.

The SEC published its latest staff statement on disclosures ahead of its second roundtable — which will focus on trading — «as part of an effort to provide greater clarity on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto assets.»

The nonbinding guidance recommends companies filing disclosures be precise about what their businesses do and what role their tokens may play in those ventures. Much of it is based on observations about what companies have previously disclosed, the statement said. The statement did not delve deeply into which cryptocurrencies are being defined as securities or what definitive guidance on that issue may look like.

«These offerings and registrations may involve equity or debt securities of issuers whose operations relate to networks, applications, and/or crypto assets. These offerings and registrations also may relate to crypto assets offered as part of or subject to an investment contract (such a crypto asset, a ‘subject crypto asset’),» the statement said.

Many of the details include disclosures made by existing companies that the SEC said it observed, including whether the businesses are developing crypto or blockchain networks, their development milestones, what the network would be for and whether it was based on open source or other technology stacks.

Previous disclosures also include details like what rights token holders have and technical specifications, the statement said.

The statement said the Division of Corporation Finance was just providing its views ahead of the SEC’s new crypto task force’s work to more clearly define where its jurisdiction lies in the digital asset sector. A footnote, like previous staff statements, noted that the statement is not formal guidance or rulemaking and «has no legal force or effect.»

Previous staff statements issued under Acting Chair Mark Uyeda addressed stablecoins and memecoins.

Read more: SEC Staff to Reassess Biden-Era Crypto Guidance Amid Regulatory Shakeup

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey recently said that the Bitcoin community should focus on scaling payments in order to remain relevant. “I think it has to be payments for [Bitcoin] to be relevant on the everyday,» he told Haley Berkoe on the 21 in 21 podcast.

I disagree.

As someone in the trenches with Bitcoin builders, who also talks to market-makers and investors, I fundamentally disagree with the idea that payments are the path forward for actual Bitcoin adoption.

The only way to grow Bitcoin’s relevance is by creating more functionality for everyday users to do something with their bitcoin that doesn’t involve selling or sending it away (i.e. hodling). That’s especially true on the institutional side, where a good corporate strategy involves more than just holding BTC on a balance sheet.

Bitcoin is a generational asset. Understanding that most holders don’t plan to sell, you have to look at how you keep the chain healthy. As the rewards for miners shrink each halving cycle, finding sustainable ways to incentivize them will be a big part of the discussion around Bitcoin over the next decade. Scaling activity to Layer 2s, like Stacks, that can bring smart contract functionality to the ecosystem without compromising the base layer, creates far more opportunities than simply scaling payments alone.

Bitcoin has established itself as “digital gold” in 2025. Individuals, institutions and countries are holding it as a safe-haven reserve investment. This trend does not lend itself to a future as a payments vehicle; instead, it creates a ripe opportunity for Bitcoiners to participate in Bitcoin DeFi and make BTC a productive asset.

A recent Binance research report stated that only about 0.8% of bitcoin is currently being used in DeFi. That means there’s nearly $1 trillion in untapped potential value on-chain if we can create a clear case for building on Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s core strength is its security, decentralization, and finite supply. Knowing that, why would someone look to use their BTC as a form of payment? Instead, through DeFi protocols, you are already able to bridge your bitcoin to an L2 and borrow stablecoins. Since BTC is now considered by most as generational wealth, it becomes your best collateral. DeFi allows you to use digital assets as payment, while keeping your BTC securely stored on the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin DeFi unlocks BTC as the most pristine form of collateral.

I agree with Dorsey when he said that Bitcoin won’t succeed if «[Bitcoin] fails to be relevant to people on a daily basis.” But we can grow long-lasting relevancy by allowing people to do more on-chain through Bitcoin DeFi.

Any builders working on platforms that extend Bitcoin’s functionality, allowing for lending, borrowing, and other financial services without compromising its security, will come out as the new leaders in this space. If we leverage these L2s, we will see people create savings accounts filled with bitcoin, earn yield in bitcoin, take out loans against their bitcoin, and virtually all of those actions will be abstracted by the scalable L2s.

Bitcoin can continue to be this asset of generational wealth or store of value against inflation, while actually being an active asset across an evolving financial ecosystem.

Utility lies in creating opportunities to do more, not in making your morning coffee purchase in BTC.