SEC Cyber Unit begins freezing ICO assets

[Gnosis7777]

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2017-219
Washington D.C., Dec. 4, 2017 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced it obtained an emergency asset freeze to halt a fast-moving Initial Coin Offering (ICO) fraud that raised up to $15 million from thousands of investors since August by falsely promising a 13-fold profit in less than a month.

The SEC filed charges against a recidivist Quebec securities law violator, Dominic Lacroix, and his company, PlexCorps. The Commission's complaint, filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, alleges that Lacroix and PlexCorps marketed and sold securities called PlexCoin on the internet to investors in the U.S. and elsewhere, claiming that investments in PlexCoin would yield a 1,354 percent profit in less than 29 days. The SEC also charged Lacroix's partner, Sabrina Paradis-Royer, in connection with the scheme.

Today's charges are the first filed by the SEC's new Cyber Unit. The unit was created in September to focus the Enforcement Division's cyber-related expertise on misconduct involving distributed ledger technology and initial coin offerings, the spread of false information through electronic and social media, hacking and threats to trading platforms.

The SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an Investor Alert in August 2017 warning investors about scams of companies claiming to be engaging in initial coin offerings: https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-alert-public-companies-making-ico-related.

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[Gnosis7777]

Today's charges are the first filed by the SEC's new Cyber Unit. The unit was created in September to focus the Enforcement Division's cyber-related expertise on misconduct involving distributed ledger technology and initial coin offerings, the spread of false information through electronic and social media, hacking and threats to trading platforms.




Looks like 99% of the ICO spamming shills on this forum are going to be in for some fun next year.

[coastbank]

Looks like its good. SEC freeze it because they suggested it will make so much money to investors. As project development team you cannot say this kind of sentence. It was well deserved I think.

[Bamselk]

Great.  Since ICOs require a centralised platform in order to create their token, it's significantly easier for a government to crack down on than it is for them to crack down on an ordinary decentralised cryptocurrency.

It seems almost inevitable that ICOs will be increasingly regulated and secured from scams over the coming months.

[Gnosis7777]

Great.  Since ICOs require a centralised platform in order to create their token, it's significantly easier for a government to crack down on than it is for them to crack down on an ordinary decentralised cryptocurrency.

It seems almost inevitable that ICOs will be increasingly regulated and secured from scams over the coming months.

Yup, they are centralized.

[cdb1690]

SEC did not freeze "ICO assets". They froze assets of a company conducting the ICO and that's a different thing. I don't know how the this specific ICO was conducted, but smart contracts are censorship resistant. You can't "freeze" or change the code of once deployed smart contract. But of course, you can sue the company conducting the ICO and froze all of its non-blockchain based assets.

[Sanglotslongs2]

SEC did not freeze "ICO assets". They froze assets of a company conducting the ICO and that's a different thing. I don't know how the this specific ICO was conducted, but smart contracts are censorship resistant. You can't "freeze" or change the code of once deployed smart contract. But of course, you can sue the company conducting the ICO and froze all of its non-blockchain based assets.

They can't stop blockchain exchange but they can freeze classic asset  They know how to manage them haha

[darkflower]

It seems almost inevitable that ICOs will be increasingly regulated and secured from scams over the coming months.

I mean it's the premise of how the ICO functions that allows for these "scams." If you bottleneck it - then you are suddenly bottlenecking all the good projects that depend on that same ecosystem to function.

[Gnosis7777]

SEC did not freeze "ICO assets". They froze assets of a company conducting the ICO and that's a different thing. I don't know how the this specific ICO was conducted, but smart contracts are censorship resistant. You can't "freeze" or change the code of once deployed smart contract. But of course, you can sue the company conducting the ICO and froze all of its non-blockchain based assets.

Lol 'censorship resistant'?

That's why Ethereum can modify it's entire blockchain like it did after the DAO hack?

Give me a break.

[Pab]

Clear scam and ponzi,any investments promising investors guaranteed profit is ponzi/scam
Very good time to answer to that stealing money mafia

[cdb1690]

SEC did not freeze "ICO assets". They froze assets of a company conducting the ICO and that's a different thing. I don't know how the this specific ICO was conducted, but smart contracts are censorship resistant. You can't "freeze" or change the code of once deployed smart contract. But of course, you can sue the company conducting the ICO and froze all of its non-blockchain based assets.

Lol 'censorship resistant'?

That's why Ethereum can modify it's entire blockchain like it did after the DAO hack?

Give me a break.

Yes, but they needed a hardfork to do that. So maybe Ethereum (taken together as the entire ecosystem) can modify the "immutable" content of its own blockchain but SEC certainly cannot.