{"id":80313,"date":"2023-06-16T10:38:54","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T07:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=80313"},"modified":"2025-09-11T16:15:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T13:15:37","slug":"texas-regulator-says-abra-is-insolvent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/texas-regulator-says-abra-is-insolvent\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas regulator says Abra is insolvent"},"content":{"rendered":"

The digital asset management platform Abra engaged in securities fraud and must immediately cease operations. The order<\/a> from the Texas State Securities Board (USA) contains such a directive.<\/p>\n

The regulator accused the company and its CEO Bill Barhydt of misrepresenting the sale of Abra Earn and Abra Boost investment products.<\/p>\n

Investors, allegedly, used digital assets to fund accounts tied to the programs in exchange for interest payments. According to enforcement actions, rates reached 10% per year.<\/p>\n

\n

“The alleged breach of fiduciary duties includes intentional concealment of financial information, [\u2026] failure to meet loan obligations, and secret transfers of assets to Binance,”<\/em> the regulator said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to the agency, as of March 31 the platform was insolvent, but on social media it misled investors by claiming that it was not bankrupt.<\/p>\n

In October 2022 Abra announced that it would discontinue selling investments in Abra Earn. According to the regulator, in the same month the platform began offering and selling Abra Boost \u2014 a storage service for digital assets for accredited and institutional investors in the United States.<\/p>\n

As of May 17, the platform had managed $116.79 million raised from U.S. investors under Abra Earn and Abra Boost.<\/p>\n

Barhydt and the company may challenge the regulator’s enforcement actions.<\/p>\n

In July 2020 the SEC<\/span> and CFTC<\/span> fined Abra $300,000<\/a> for offering securities-based swaps to retail investors without proper registration, in addition to “inability to execute this on a registered exchange”.<\/p>\n

Abra is one of the veterans of the crypto industry. The firm has been operating since 2014, initially providing a money transfer app between the Philippines and the United States.<\/p>\n

In autumn 2015 Abra raised $12 million in funding, including from American Express Ventures.<\/p>\n

The company subsequently expanded geographically: in 2016 it entered the U.S. market, and a while later added the option to invest using Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in traditional financial instruments.<\/p>\n

In May 2020 Abra received $5 million in funding from the Stellar Development Foundation.<\/p>\n

In September 2021 the platform closed a Series C funding round of $55 million<\/a> with the participation of Blockchain Capital, Kingsway Capital, Stellar Development Foundation and others.<\/p>\n

In July 2022, Abra laid off ~5%<\/a> of its staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The digital asset management platform Abra engaged in securities fraud and must immediately cease operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[863,36],"class_list":["post-80313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-abra","tag-regulation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"20","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80313"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80315,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80313\/revisions\/80315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}