[03-04-2018] Binance Exchange Issues Centra Risk Warning

[bitzamp.com]

Binance Exchange Issues Centra Risk Warning And Consider’s Freezing Trading
The ICO Centra, the recent crackdown by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, poses a risk to merchants. This prompted Binance to issue an immediate warning, and consider freezing the trade.

“WE WILL CONTINUE TO SEEK MORE INFORMATION AND MONITOR THE SITUATION CLOSELY, AND MAY TAKE FURTHER ACTION INCLUDING DELISTING. SHOULD WE CHOOSE TO DELIST THE TOKEN, A NOTICE PERIOD OF NO LESS THAN 72 HOURS WILL BE PROVIDED,” ANNOUNCED BINANCE.

For Binance, this is the second event of the response to regulators, following the September crackdown on the ICOs in China. At the time, Binance proposed to return to TRON.
The Centra digital asset (CTR) has fallen more than 57% to $ 0.12 overnight and has lost most of its value since the December high of over $ 3. Over 80% of Centra’s transaction

Read More: https://bitzamp.com/binance-exchange-issues-centra-risk-warning-and-considers-freezing-trading/

[Slow death]

this is a very sad story for all the investors of this coin, I read this:

SEC Halts Fraudulent Scheme Involving Unregistered ICO

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2018-53

Washington D.C., April 2, 2018 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two co-founders of a purported financial services start-up with orchestrating a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) that raised more than $32 million from thousands of investors last year.  Criminal authorities separately charged and arrested both defendants.   

The SEC's complaint alleges that Sohrab “Sam”� Sharma and Robert Farkas, co-founders of Centra Tech. Inc., masterminded a fraudulent ICO in which Centra offered and sold unregistered investments through a "CTR Token."�  Sharma and Farkas allegedly claimed that funds raised in the ICO would help build a suite of financial products.  They claimed, for example, to offer a debit card backed by Visa and MasterCard that would allow users to instantly convert hard-to-spend cryptocurrencies into U.S. dollars or other legal tender. In reality, the SEC alleges, Centra had no relationships with Visa or MasterCard.

according to this comment:

Centra have never claimed to have been backed by VISA or Mastercard
Submitted 2 hours ago by Matrix786

They have only stated that they were backed by a bank that was undisclosed due to the signing of an NDA. The 'said' bank apparently had an authorization to issue the visa and mastercard, though it was never promised or one of their key factors in its ICO. If, however, there was to be any fraud, it would be that there was no bank. Wait until the official announcement from the team before spreading anymore misinformation.

The SEC also alleges that to promote the ICO, Sharma and Farkas created fictional executives with impressive biographies, posted false or misleading marketing materials to Centra’s website, and paid celebrities to tout the ICO on social media.

and then this:

According to the complaint, Farkas made flight reservations to leave the country, but was arrested before he was able to board his flight.

and this:

The centra team were not arrested, just the cofounder who is no longer the CEO nor holds running positions in the company. Furthermore, the SEC press release states that Robert Farkas was arrested fleeing the country. That is simply not true. The guy was scheduled to be in Korea for an event.

well, this is a story that will generate a lot of noise

[gentlemand]

Centra have never claimed to have been backed by VISA or Mastercard

Things like this will start coming so thick and fast in the coming months it'll barely register any more.

I've seen the same attitude time and again. Because it's 'on the internet' and 'decentralised' they can ignore those inconvenient laws. Here comes the payback and it's going to sting.

It'll be interesting to see whether exchanges are regarded as culpable in cases like this. Considering the power they have to make or break coins they may well do.