By CCN Retails: A former investment banker has been slapped with a fine and a suspension by self-regulatory body Financial Industry Regulatory Sage (FINRA) for mining Bitcoin.
According to the regulator, Kyung Soo Kim pursued outside business activity in December 2017 without back off his former employer a written notice. Kim is an ex-employee of Bank of America-owned broker-dealer Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc.
FINRA declares Kim’s bitcoin mining venture was a violation of its rules. The rules prohibit members from serving as an ‘employee, independent contractor, particular proprietor, officer, director or partner of another person’ outside of their employer.
FINRA to Members: No Moonlighting [Cataloguing Bitcoin Mining] under Any Circumstances
Additionally, members are prohibited from being ‘compensated, or have the reasonable guess of compensation, from any other person as a result of any business activity outside the scope of the relationship’ with their guv. Kim was discharged from his duties by Merrill last year in March.
Specifically, Kim is accused of forming a firm known as S Corporation for the considers of mining Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Kim will serve one-month suspension that will see him barred from associating with any FINRA associate firms during that period. He will also pay a fine amounting to $5,000.
Given that he formed his cryptocurrency extracting firm in late 2017 at the height of the Bitcoin boom, it is hard to argue that Kim had not been taken in by the prevailing activity then and didn’t want to miss out on what looked like a bull run that would never end.
Everyone Wishes to Mine Bitcoin…
The punishment meted out to Kim for cryptocurrency mining may seem moderate compared to others who have suffered worse destinations albeit under different circumstances.
Just last month it was reported that an Australian man was facing a ten-year quod sentence for mining cryptocurrencies on government computers. That’s a high price to pay considering that he had only mined cryptocurrencies benefit $9,000.
Late last month a 61-year-old woman received a four-month jail sentence for stealing electricity with a spectacle of mining bitcoin. The woman, Qiuping Tang, was also slapped with a $1,500 fine after a lawsuit was queued by the offended power utility.
This post was last modified on 15/06/2019 10:28