On 11 December, the U.S. Securities, and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a cease and desists into Munchee Inc. Based in California to prevent their ICO and return the capital that was accumulated.
Munchee ICO had been seeking $15 million in funds to boost their existing mobile application and formulate a restaurant review ecosystem that they described as being “Yelp meets Instagram” within their Bitcointalk statement. The issue arose when Munchee highlighted that it might take steps to make a secondary market for The tokens within an investment vehicle, leading investors to have a fair Belief that their tokens would increase in value, long ahead of time of the utility of the token being made accessible.
The announcement made by SEC, Stephanie Avakian, co-director of the SEC Enforcement Division, stated, “We shall continue to inspect the industry cautiously for inappropriate offerings which attempt to market securities to the general public without the mandatory registration or exemption. In determining not to impose a penalty, the Commission realized that the firm stopped the ICO quick, instantaneously returned the profits before issuing tokens, and collaborated with the investigation.”
In the SEC complaint, the commission contended that the MUN tokens were considered Securities since “they were investment contracts” and have been deemed a security apart of their usefulness in the time of the sale. Munchee ICO agreed to this SEC’s order without admitting to or denying, the findings.
The activity is important since it shows the openness of the SEC to intervene and do it. Additionally, it exemplifies a willingness on the part of the SEC to work with businesses which are cooperative when they run afoul of the regulations.
Source: http://www.unkrypted.com/sec-shuts-down-munchee-ico/
Ricky Makan is a venture capitalist and Crypto Enthusiast best known for pioneering the market for Digital Marketing. He is a Co-founder of Unkrypted, a platform which provides the latest news and information that helps understand everything about the ever-evolving world of digital currencies. He is been fascinated by Blockchain technology since the first time he heard about it in 2013