BitcoinOver the course of the last two months, we have witnessed a flurry of enforcement activity with respect to initial coin offerings and virtual currency fraud schemes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC continued that trend today with an announcement that it has obtained a court order halting an allegedly fraudulent ICO that targeted retail investors to fund what was claimed to be the world’s first “decentralized bank” offering its own cryptocurrency. The public sale in question began around December 26, 2017, and was originally scheduled to conclude on January 27, 2018, with distribution to investors on February 10, 2018.

According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in federal district court in Dallas on January 25 and unsealed late yesterday, Dallas-based AriseBank used social media, a celebrity endorsement, and other tactics to raise what it claims to be $600 million of its $1 billion goal in just two months. AriseBank and its two co-founders allegedly offered and sold unregistered investments in their “AriseCoin” cryptocurrency by depicting AriseBank as a first-of-its-kind decentralized bank offering a variety of consumer-facing banking products and services using more than 700 different virtual currencies.  AriseBank’s sales pitch claimed that it developed an algorithmic trading application that automatically trades in various cryptocurrencies.

The SEC alleges that AriseBank falsely stated that it purchased an FDIC-insured bank which enabled it to offer customers FDIC-insured accounts and that it also offered customers the ability to obtain an AriseBank-branded VISA card to spend any of the 700-plus cryptocurrencies.  AriseBank also allegedly omitted to disclose the criminal background of key executives.

The district court approved an emergency asset freeze over AriseBank and its two co-founders, and appointed a receiver over AriseBank, including over its digital assets.  The court-appointed receiver was able to immediately secure various cryptocurrencies held by AriseBank including Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitshares, Dogecoin, and BitUSD.  The SEC seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest and penalties, and bars against the individuals to prohibit them from serving as officers or directors of a public company or offering digital securities again in the future.

Today’s announcement from the SEC is the latest foray in an aggressive federal crackdown on virtual currency scams that has been underway since last fall. Both the SEC and CFTC have created specialized units to focus on virtual currency issues. The SEC’s Cyber Unit was created in September 2017 to focus the Enforcement Division’s cyber-related expertise on misconduct involving distributed ledger technology and initial coin offerings, the spread of false information through electronic and social media, hacking, and threats to trading platforms. The CFTC has created a Virtual Currency Task Force to focus on virtual currency fraud schemes.

The SEC’s Cyber Unit filed its first-ever suit to halt an ICO scam in early December (coverage here). Shortly thereafter, the SEC announced that it had obtained a cease-and-desist order to halt a California company’s ICO (coverage here).

Earlier this month, the CFTC weighed in, announcing the filing of two enforcement actions to combat alleged virtual currency fraud schemes (coverage here). The next day, the CFTC and SEC issued a joint statement reaffirming their agencies’ commitment to continuing to address violations and to bringing legal actions to stop and prevent fraud in the offer and sale of digital instruments. Most recently, the CFTC filed suit on January 24 to halt an alleged virtual currency scam involving a currency called My Big Coin (coverage here).

In addition to these enforcement actions, the SEC and CFTC have published guidance warning consumers and investors as to the perils of ICOs and virtual currency schemes. The SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy issued an Investor Alert in August 2017. In December 2017, the CFTC launched its Virtual Currency Resource Web Page and published a Customer Advisory to inform the public of possible risks associated with investing or speculating in virtual currencies.

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