SEC escalates enforcement of digital currency offerings

Published November 16, 2018 6:54pm ET



The Securities and Exchange Commission escalated its crackdown on initial coin offerings on Friday, announcing two new settlements with companies that created their own cryptocurrencies to raise money.

CarrierEQ Inc. and Paragon Coin Inc. both agreed to refund customers who bought their currencies, register their tokens as securities, and each pay $250,000 in fines to the commission for violating securities law by failing to register their currency offerings. They’re the second and third cryptocurrency companies to reach agreements with the capital markets regulatory agency over unregistered investment offerings. While ICOs exploded last year, raising billions, few companies registered their digital tokens as securities — meaning they would have to follow the same disclosures as a stock offering — despite warnings from the SEC.

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