Yesterday, the United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that it has charged fine against a crypto firm based out of Texas, the U.S. As a result of this, the firm- Bitqyck is now ready to pay 8,375,617 U.S. Dollar as fine. Also, the founders- Bise and Menendez of the firm will each pay $890,254 and $850,022, respectively. The SEC has also settled charges against the crypto firm’s founders. The firm was charged on two grounds-
- The first one is on the basis of issuing illegal crypto tokens.
- The second charge on the crypto firm is on the grounds of using an online trading platform which is not registered.
On 28th August, the SEC settled these charges. These charges were dawned based on the agency’s database, and down the years the regulatory body has settled around forty such charges against several crypto firms for wrongly offering crypto tokens in one or the other way.
The unregistered securities offering:
During the wrong unregistered securities offerings, the founders of Bitqyck- Bruce Bise and Sam Menendez, raised 13 million U.S Dollars. They sold the securities to more than 13K investors. They allured the investors by saying that they will get-
- By purchasing the firm’s token called- Bitqy, through the smart contracts, the investor would gain fractional shares in the stocks of the firm.
- Secondly, there was another token offered called- ‘BitqyM.’ By purchasing this one, the investors were offered an interest in the crypto mining facility, whereas, in reality, the firm did not own any such facility.
- The firm further permitted its investors to buy or sell Bitqy tokens through an unregistered exchange called- TradeBQ.
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By far, the case still needs a deeper clarity, as the claims made by the SEC have not been commented upon by either the Bitqyck nor its owners. On the other hand, connecting the dots, the managing partner at Perkins Coie’s New York Office- Keith Miller (whose clients are Bise and Menendez), said that their clients were happy that the matter with the SEC was ‘finally resolved.’ Miller also stated that they were now focusing on ‘moving on with their lives.’
Whereas, if we look at SEC side of the story, the head of the SEC’s Fort Worth Regional Office- David Peavler, had the following to say-
Because digital investment assets represent new and exciting technology, they can be very alluring, especially if investors believe they are getting in on the ground floor and will own part of the operations. […] We allege that the defendants took advantage of investors’ appetite for these investments and fraudulently raised millions of dollars by lying about their business.
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All the people involved in the case have mutually come to the common grounds of adhering to the agency’s judgment. As per sources, the agency has revealed that they are ready to return the “allegedly ill-gotten gains, including with interest, amounting to nearly 10 million U.S Dollars.”
