Regulators in the U.S. and Canada are skiff a widespread crackdown on some cryptocurrency investment schemes, members of the North American Cares Administrators Association said Monday.
More than 40 aver and provincial watchdogs are participating in “Operation Crypto-Sweep,” which has triggered at hardly 70 investigations so far. The coordinated effort, first reported by The Washington Pile, focuses on a cryptocurrency fundraising process known as initial coin contributions, as well as other “investment schemes.”
“Although the international task wrest’s work is far from complete, my suspicions have already been upheld: The market for cryptocurrency investments is saturated with fraud, and our work is solitary revealing the tip of the iceberg,” said Joseph Rotunda, director of enforcement at the Texas Affirm Securities Board.
Earlier in May, Texas regulators sent a warning the humanities to U.K.- based BTCrush saying it was violating securities laws and misleading investors as a consequence its marketing. The company published videos showing the interior and workings of what it suggested was three fully operating mining farms. State regulators bring up the videos were actually sourced from publicly available worn out footage.
The Texas regulator also took action against Energize Wide Coin, which used pictures of celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Prince Charles to advertise its cryptocurrency.
“Promoters also skilled in that anyone can be anyone and say anything about anything on the internet,” Rotunda revealed. “Not surprisingly, they are also manipulating photographs, media, testimonials and other online facts to deceive the public into believing their claims.”
The crackdown happens amid growing attention in the U.S. to cryptocurrency scams, including by the Securities and Change Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The SEC has brought several humbug cases against operators of initial coin offerings and last week sent a website to help investors recognize scams.
Massachusetts regulators are also participating in the crackdown.
William Francis Galvin, the affirm’s secretary of the commonwealth, said NASAA’s task force found unsympathetically 30,000 crypto-related domain name registrations, many of which appeared in news 2017 as the price of bitcoin neared $20,000.
“Not every ICO or cryptocurrency-related investment is crooked, but we urge investors to approach any initial coin offering or cryptocurrency-related investment by-product with extreme caution,” Galvin said in a statement. “Fraudulent movement involving ICOs and cryptocurrency-related investment products is a serious threat to Massachusetts investors.”