{"id":28301,"date":"2023-04-28T19:26:59","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T19:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/sec-looks-down-on\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T19:29:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T19:29:34","slug":"sec-looks-down-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/sec-looks-down-on\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC looks down on UpToken, imposes crypto fines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>(Reuters) &#8211;     The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has fined Seattle-based Coinme and related defendants nearly $4 million for conducting an unregistered and misleading offering of a crypto asset called UpToken.<\/p>\n<p>Friday&#8217;s settlement resolves claims that Coinme&#8217;s Up Global unit and Neil Bergquist, who led both entities, misled investors in a late 2017 initial coin offering for UpToken, which was issued on the Ethereum blockchain.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC said investors were led to believe Up Global would limit the supply of UpToken, while Coinme would create constant demand for UpToken to fund a bitcoin automated teller machine rewards program, helping boost UpToken&#8217;s price.<\/p>\n<p>According to the regulator, the claims were misleading because Up Global had quietly conducted transactions that reduced Coinme&#8217;s need for UpToken.<\/p>\n<p>It also said Up Global and Bergquist falsely told investors that the offering raised $10 million to $18.9 million despite knowing that it actually raised much less, $3.65 million.<\/p>\n<p>Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Coinme and Up Global will pay a combined $3.77 million, while Bergquist will pay $150,000. Bergquist, 35, also received a three-year ban from being an officer or director of public companies.<\/p>\n<p>Coinme did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC has been cracking down on cryptocurrency markets since Gary Gensler became its chair in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Gensler told the House Financial Services Committee on April 18 that crypto markets were &#8220;rife with noncompliance&#8221; that put investors at risk and undermined public trust in capital markets.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/sec-looks-down-on\/file-photo-the-seal-of-the-u-s-securities-and-exchange-6\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3R0XW-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3R0XW-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) &#8211; The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has fined Seattle-based Coinme and related defendants nearly $4 million for conducting an unregistered and misleading offering of a crypto asset called UpToken. Friday&#8217;s settlement resolves claims that Coinme&#8217;s Up Global unit and Neil Bergquist, who led both entities, misled investors in a late 2017 initial coin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3R0XW-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28303,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28301\/revisions\/28303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}