The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) continues its ongoing initiative to protect investors from financial harm involving fraudulent initial coin offerings (ICOs) and cryptocurrency-related investment products. NASAA recently announced that more than 200 ICOs and cryptocurrency-related investment products are currently under active investigation. Also this week, the Colorado Securities Commissioner issued orders to investigate three cryptocurrency companies promoting unregistered ICOs in Colorado. The "ICO Task Force," convened by the Commissioner in May, is responsible for the investigations into the three companies.
In international developments, finance ministers from the European Union plan to discuss regulation of cryptocurrency markets and digital assets during a Sept. 7 meeting in Vienna. The meeting will address the lack of transparency in the cryptocurrency markets and the potential to misuse digital assets for money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing. In China, five regulatory agencies – the People's Bank of China, the Banking Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Public Security, the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission and the State Administration for Market Regulation – jointly issued a warning against trading activities involving cryptocurrencies. While these regulators are mostly focused on overseas projects that solicit investments from Chinese residents through mobile and internet platforms, the regulators also warn against new domestic fundraising methods like initial exchange offerings, initial fork offerings and initial miner offerings.
In the area of cybercrimes, a recent report from an IT security firm indicates that the first half of 2018 saw an increase in malicious crypto-mining attacks. The report notes that malicious crypto-mining attacks over the first six months of 2018 are up 956 percent from the attacks across a similar period in 2017.
To read more about the topics covered in this week's post, see the following:
- NASAA Updates Coordinated Crypto Crackdown: More than 200 Active Investigations by State and Provincial Securities Regulators
- Colorado Securities Commissioner issues orders to three companies as part of cryptocurrency investigation
- The EU Is Taking Another Look at Regulating Crypto
- Nvidia Reports ‘Substantial Decline’ in GPU Sales to Crypto Miners
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.