Reuters
Jay Clayton, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has raised concerns about ICO and cryptocurrency markets.
Initial coin offerings are still being registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission but at a slower rate after a big drop in the price of cryptocurrencies as well as heightened regulator scrutiny.
MarketWatch counted 33 ICO-related fundraisings accepted by the SEC in the first quarter of 2019, with a total stated value of $1.9 billion. That is down from a peak of 99 in the second quarter of 2018.
MarketWatch estimated there were 287 ICO-related fundraisings accepted by the SEC with a total stated value of $8.7 billion in 2018. That was a significant increase from 44 fundraisings filed with a total stated value of $2.1 billion in 2017.
MarketWatch searched the SEC’s Edgar database for mentions of words including “coin,” “ICO,” “token,” “initial coin offering” and “saft” in Form D filings.
ICO promoters gain access to accredited investors with no review by the SEC through Form D, as first reported by MarketWatch in February 2018.
Form Ds are notices filed by a company for an offering that is exempt from full SEC registration requirements. The key criteria for the Form D exemption is that only “accredited investors,” that is, individuals that have a net worth of over $1 million, or that have consistently made over $200,000 per year in income, or companies that have over $5 million in assets, can invest.
Companies don’t have to file the Form D before the offering takes place, but instead within 15 days after the first sale of securities in the offering.
The slowdown in ICO action comes as the price of the most popular cryptocurrency, bitcoin BTCUSD, +16.33% , has dropped from a peak of nearly $20,000 to $4,786.86 on Tuesday afternoon.
In November, the SEC settled charges against CarrierEQ Inc. and Paragon Coin Inc. for sales of digital tokens using initial coin offering without registering. Both companies agreed to return funds to harmed investors, register the tokens as securities, file periodic reports with the SEC, and pay penalties.
Those cases followed the SEC’s first non-fraud ICO registration case, against Munchee, Inc. The SEC did not penalize Munchee, which stopped its offering before delivering any tokens and promptly returned proceeds to investors.
