US regulators have fined crypto companies and individuals $ 2.5 billion – regulation Bitcoin News
A new report shows that US regulators have so far imposed fines and penalties totaling $ 2.5 billion on crypto firms and individuals. Most of the fines were imposed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, followed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Meanwhile, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the newest government agency to come after crypto firms.
Fines and penalties of $ 2.5 billion
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic released a report on Monday describing “US regulators’ crypto enforcement actions.” The report says: “Contrary to popular belief that the crypto asset industry is unregulated, US regulators are increasingly imposing significant financial sanctions on crypto companies – for fraud, violating AML regulations, offering unregistered ones Securities and violations of sanctions. “
Elliptic analyzed the enforcement actions taken by US regulators since Bitcoin’s inception in 2009 and found that “$ 2.5 billion in fines have been imposed on companies and individuals trading in cryptocurrencies,” the report said.
The agency that has imposed the most crypto-related penalties is the US Securities and Exchange Commission. So far, crypto firms and individuals have been asked by the SEC to pay $ 1.69 billion, including $ 1.38 billion for unregistered security offerings.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ranked second with enforcement actions totaling $ 624 million. The third is the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a unit of the US Treasury Department, with $ 183 million.
The fourth is the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the newest government agency to crack down on crypto companies. OFAC has imposed a total of $ 606K on crypto entities. Among the companies fined by OFAC were Bitgo and Bitpay; both allegedly allowed their users to evade US sanctions.
The largest enforcement lawsuit to date was against Telegram Group Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary Ton Issuer Inc. in 2020, the report said. The SEC claimed that Telegram’s tokens called “Grams” were an unregistered offering of securities. The defendants agreed to return more than $ 1.2 billion to investors and pay a civil fine of $ 18.5 million.
The report concludes:
Our analysis of enforcement actions related to crypto assets in the US shows that crypto is far from being the “wild west” of the financial world. Regulators have successfully used existing laws to stop and punish illegal activities that have exploited crypto assets.
What do you think of all of these U.S. regulatory enforcement actions against crypto companies and individuals? Let us know in the comments section below.
Photo credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Elliptic
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