SEC sues ICOBox for violating US securities laws

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against ICOBox, a provider of ICO marketing services. Nikolay Evdokimov, the founder of ICOBox, has allegedly conducted an illegal $14 million securities offering of digital tokens. ICOBox violated US securities laws by selling digital tokens to US investors without registering the initial coin offering (ICO).

ICOBox has reportedly served many crypto projects, that collected more than $650 million via initial token offerings. Some of the ICOs are still running, including names such as INS, Universa, Play2Live, Crypterium, Celsius, Storiqa, Tokenstars, and CrowdGenie. Michele Wein Layne, Regional Director of the Los Angeles Regional Office, said:

“By ignoring the registration requirements of the federal securities laws, ICOBox and Evdokimov exposed investors to investments, which are now virtually worthless, without providing information that is critical to making informed investment decisions.”

As explained in the order, the SEC determined that ICOBox amounted to selling securities without filing a registration or qualifying for a registration exemption. As per SEC, the offering was in disagreement with the securities laws as the vehicle being offered could be deemed as securities, and thus the principles should have registered with the SEC as broker-dealers

Currently, the regulatory status of crypto offerings is not precise. However, the SEC said that that securities law might apply to some virtual tokens owing to their specific characteristics. Securities registration, disclosure and other requirements apply in those cases. The SEC has put the offerings of many companies to hold after issuing warnings. It has also frozen the assets of several cryptocurrency firms, halted ICOs and suspended trading.