Fines Imposed on Up Global and Coinme
• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) imposed cease-and-desist orders and fines upon three parties involved in UpToken on April 28.
• This offering involved the ICO sale of an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency called UpToken, which was intended to fund the deployment of new Coinme ATMs.
• The SEC complained that the participants sold securities without registering and without obtaining an exemption from registration.
Overview
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently imposed cease-and-desist orders and fines upon three parties involved in the initial coin offering (ICO) for UpToken on April 28th, 2021. This offering involved the sale of an Ethereum-based cryptocurrency called UpToken, which was intended to fund the deployment of new Coinme ATMs around the world. The SEC alleges that these tokens were sold as securities without being registered or obtaining exemptions from registration as required by law, as well as falsely claiming that token supply would be limited while also promising to buy back up tokens from investors in order to create demand and increase token value.
Up Global & Coinme Fined
Up Global and its CEO Neil Bergquist have been fined by the SEC for their involvement in this ICO, with a combined total of $3.9 million dollars being issued between them both. In addition, they have been ordered to stop selling unregistered securities directly or indirectly through any means including digital asset exchanges or broker dealers operating pursuant to federal regulations until proper registration has been established or an appropriate exemption is obtained from registration requirements with respect to such offers or sales of securities by them respectively.
Kraken’s New CEO
Dave Ripley has recently taken over as Kraken’s new CEO with plans for growth and expansion in the coming months ahead, following his predecessor Jesse Powell’s decision to step down from his role earlier this year due to personal reasons unrelated to Kraken’s operations or business performance at the time.
US Government Holds $6B Worth of Bitcoin
Glassnode data reveals that US government currently holds nearly $6 billion worth of Bitcoin within its reserves after recent reports indicated a surge in institutional investments during Q1 2021 compared to Q4 2020 when only $3 billion worth of BTC had been exchanged into USD currency during that period alone according to previous findings published by CryptoSlate back then when news first broke out regarding US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s comments about Bitcoin being “extremely inefficient“.