While the SEC is pondering whether to grant the existence of a Bitcoin ETF, it is not wasting time in charging the cryptocurrency industry, where appropriate.
The financial regulator has fined the blockchain company Block.one for unregistered ICO. The fine was $24 million. According to the SEC, the ICO raised billions of dollars in digital assets and the operation was run between June 2017 and June 2018. The law stipulates that any ICO must be registered as a securities offering, but the company did not do so. What this means is that investors in the ICO project were not given the information they are entitled to in order to make the informed decision to support the project.
The company has not admitted or denied the allegations made by the SEC, but has agreed to paying the fine. Block.one operates in Virginia and Hong Kong. The raised amount by Block.one included 900 million tokens and US investors were involved as well.
According to press, Block.one was granted a waiver that essentially exempts the company from ongoing restrictions that will apply to settlement of such kind.
The SEC has fined many companies over dubious practices. The latest company sued by the SEC company over its ICO process is Kik, a messaging service that failed to register its ICO.
This is what the SEC commented on the Block.one case:
The SEC remains committed to bringing enforcement cases when investors are deprived of material information they need to make informed investment decisions.