Last year saw the regulatory belt tighten as multiple initial coin offerings (ICOs) faced action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Today yielded details of another unregistered ICO tale.
Commendable ICO actions
According to a press release from the SEC, Gladius Network LLC ran its ICO near the end of 2017. The ICO statedly failed to register with the SEC and did not meet exemption standards.
Gladius raised about $12,500,000 via its ICO token sale, as detailed on ICObench. The project statedly looked to help in the fight against internet (DDoS) attacks, as well as improve webpage loading.
As per the SEC press release, Gladius ran its ICO after the SEC already had made an example of The DAO project in July of 2017, showing securities laws may pertain to certain ICOs.
Gladius actually self-reported itself to the authorities last summer and "expressed an interest in taking prompt remedial steps, and cooperated with the investigation," the press release stated. The project said it would remunerate those who invested, properly register its tokens and keep the agency up to date on necessary routine report filings. Due to the project's honorable actions, the SEC chose not to penalize Gladius, as noted in the release.
The regulating body feels it has been upfront on the topic of ICOs and securities laws. Quoted in the press release, SEC Cyber Unit Chief Robert A. Cohen posited, “[t]he SEC has been clear that companies must comply with the securities laws when issuing digital tokens that are securities [...] Today’s case shows the benefit of self-reporting and taking proactive steps to remediate unregistered offerings.”
GLA price falls
Possibly due to today's SEC news on Gladius, the project's token, GLA, is down more than 43% over the past 24 hours according to CoinMarketCap data. At the time of this writing, GLA sits at roughly $0.04. Earlier today the token held a price of just over $0.07.
Exactly one year ago, on February 20, 2018, CoinMarketCap priced GLA at roughly $1.15, one of the tokens highest price peaks to date.
ICOs a hot regulatory topic
ICO regulatory compliance has painted many headlines over the past several months. As the regulatory stove started heating up back in February of 2018, CoinDesk quoted SEC chairman Jay Clayton, who said, “I believe every ICO I’ve seen is a security.”
Most of 2018, as well as 2019 thus far, have seen details of various investigations, perhaps proving the Wild West days of crypto may be a thing of the past.
Originally posted on Crypto Insider : https://cryptoinsider.com/unregistered-ico-reports-itself-to-the-sec-and-comes-to-terms/