Over seven years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has collected penalties totaling more than $1.77 billion from participants in the cryptocurrency market. This is according to a Cornerstone Research report.
The analysis covers the period from July 2013 to December 2020. During that time the regulator initiated 75 enforcement actions against individuals, token issuers, brokers, Bitcoin exchanges and other service providers.
The report’s author, Simona Molà, noted that by March 2021 the regulator had settled more than 70% of the claims totaling more than $1.77 billion.
“Over the past seven or so years, the SEC has established itself as one of the leading regulators in the cryptocurrency industry,” Molà added.
The most common charges were fraud (52%) and selling unregistered securities (69%). More than half of the cases relate to ICOs.
In 2020 the regulator collected in the form of penalties and fines more than $4.68 billion. Of these, $1.26 billion went to the Telegram ICO and cryptocurrency token sales.
In December 2020, the SEC accused Ripple of selling unregistered securities in the form of XRP tokens.
In March 2021, the regulator filed a similar suit against the blockchain startup LBRY.
SEC Cryptocurrency Enforcement Q3 2013 Q4 2020 by ForkLog on Scribd