The messaging startup agreed to return the funds to settle charges that its digital asset offering was an unregistered sale of securities.
“The SEC isn’t playing around. It's time these [ICO] companies recognize this.”
The blockchain startup is the latest company to be sanctioned by the SEC for failing to provide a registration statement for a digital asset offering.
Russia-based ICO Rating failed to disclose that its "ratings" of initial coin offerings were actually paid promotions.
The startup's founders allegedly duped investors by making false statements about what they claimed to be the first "decentralized" bank.
The SEC reaches settlements with a hedge fund manager and the owners of TokenLot in cases alleging registration violations.
The SEC says David Laurance used misleading marketing materials to try to raise $5 million by selling "Tomahawkcoins."
The startup's co-founders spun a "web of lies" to deceive investors into participating in its initial coin offering, according to an SEC lawsuit.
More than 8% of U.S. public companies were hit with a shareholder class-action suit in 2017, a nine-year high.
AriseBank called itself the first "decentralized bank" and claimed to have acquired two FDIC-insured institutions.
KodakCoin will serve as the medium of exchange on a blockchain platform designed to track the use of their copyrighted images on the internet.
The SEC stepped in after determining that Munchee's initial coin offering amounted to an unregistered sale of securities.
