‘ICO Superstore’ Among Crypto Businesses That Draw SEC Sanctions
- Agency penalizes firm for failing to register as broker-dealer
- Hedge fund fined for falsely claiming offering was regulated
U.S. regulators brought two first-of-their-kind enforcement cases tied to cryptocurrencies Tuesday, fining a firm that promoted itself as a Walmart for initial coin offerings and a hedge fund that offered digital assets without meeting registration requirements.
TokenLot LLC and its owners agreed to pay more than $500,000 to settle Securities and Exchange Commission claims that they failed to register as broker-dealers, the agency said in a statement Tuesday. The self-styled “ICO Superstore” and owners Lenny Kugel and Eli L. Lewitt received more than 6,000 investor orders and handled more than 200 digital tokens without proper licenses from July 2017 through February, the SEC said. They agreed to resolve the allegations without admitting or denying wrongdoing.