SEC fines ICORating rating agency at $ 260 + thousand

SEC accuses icorating.com rating agency of concealing income derived from"paid ICO reviews".

According to the document, the SEC believes that the siteICORating violates the policy of "anti-advertising." In addition, the owners of the agency are accused of concealing information about profits received from the promotion of ICOs, many of which are classified as financial securities.

The law aims not only to punish the seller or creators, but also the portals that were involved in promoting sales. According to the SEC, any income requires proper disclosure to investors.

In turn, ICORating offered a monetary settlement to the regulator. The total penalty assessed by the SEC is $268,998.

Recently, the SEC has begun to aggressively combatICOs, a fundraising mechanism through which many cryptocurrency startups managed to raise huge amounts of money during the 2017-2018 bull rally.

This charge may also be imposed on others.websites and exchanges that charge fees for reviews and top listing of ICO projects. Thus, fines, restitution and legal fees can easily kill most projects. A similar example was witnessed with the Horizon State project in Australia, which led to the disappearance of the Decision Token (HST).

However, there are also those ICOs that tryfight. And the Kik ICO case – the first project that attempted to challenge the regulator's claims. Consequently, while the SEC has been successful in cracking down on ICOs, there are still some areas where the lack of regulatory guidance gives ICOs a chance to fight back.