The series of illegal ICOs that come under SEC’s radar continues and Boon.Tech is another name charged for fraud. In 2017, the company raised approximately $5 million worth of Boon tokens to investors in the United States, which seems to be an unregistered issuance of securities. The funds were intended to build a platform to connect employers posting jobs with freelancers seeking work.
Boon.Tech CEO also facing serious accusations
According to the August 13th SEC Press Release, the Boon.Tech CEO Rajesh Pavithran had also been charged with fraud accusations. He was found violating the antifraud and registration provisions of the federal securities law and had already agreed to settle with the SEC, requiring Boon.Tech to disgorge to $5 million raised in the ICO, plus prejudgement interest of $600,334.
Kristina Littman, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Cyber Unit, talked about the ICO and her speech revealed the Boon.Tech misconduct:
“Investors are entitled to truthful disclosures from issuers of securities, whether digital or otherwise…Pavithran and Boon.Tech defrauded investors by convincing them to fund this endeavor based on the allure of innovation that simply did not exist.”
Same as Tezos or Opporty, other two ICOs we’ve talked about in the past, Boon.Tech was unable to get past the SEC’s radar and had to face consequences. The ICO that was conducted between November 2017 and January 2018 is not the only issue related to this project.
Apparently, the SEC PR reveals that both Boon.Tech and Pavithran made false statements regarding the Boon coins, that were deemed stable and secure, even though most of the small altcoins were showing great instability once listed on exchange platforms.
Large cryptocurrencies still reliable
As old ICOs are now faced with serious accusations, investors had migrated towards the traditionally popular cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is higher again in 2020, which raises the prospects for the next few months. Ether had a more impressive performance this year, after managing to get past $400 for the first time since August 2018.
The SEC does not consider Bitcoin or Ether as unregistered securities due to their decentralized structure, and because of that, these projects can benefit from the lack of regulatory interventions. That can’t be said about small projects that raised money in the US, without considering the Securities Law or other requirements.
What happened to Boon.Tech is yet another reason proving that sooner or later, all fraudulent companies will need to face the consequences of their mistakes. In this case, all investors that had participated in the ICO will get their money back, thanks to the actions taken by the SEC.
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