NBA Top Shot NFT Lawsuit Settled for $4 Million
A lawsuit against Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot NFTs, has been temporarily settled for $4 million.
The lawsuit, filed in 2021, alleged that Dapper Labs violated federal securities laws with their NBA Top Shot product.
The crux of the issue? Investors claimed NBA Top Shot Moments were essentially unregistered securities. Specifically, the lawsuit pointed to:
- Promises of Value Increase: The plaintiffs argued that Dapper Labs made claims suggesting their NFTs would increase in value, which can be seen as incentivizing investment and potentially illegal under securities laws.
- Trading Restrictions: The lawsuit also highlighted limitations placed on buying and selling NBA Top Shot NFTs. Investors reportedly faced periods where they couldn’t cash out or trade their Moments on external platforms, keeping all activity within Dapper Labs’ own marketplace.
Settlement Reached, Conditions Attached
To resolve the lawsuit, Dapper Labs has agreed to create a $4 million settlement fund for the investors.
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However, the settlement comes with strings attached. Court documents show that the investors involved must agree to stop claiming NBA Top Shot NFTs are securities as part of the deal.
This settlement is temporary, but it marks a significant development in the ongoing debate surrounding NFTs and their classification under securities laws.
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
