The US' Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has slapped a $24 million penalty on cryptocurrency company Block.one for conducting an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO). The company was fined for selling unregistered ERC-20 tokens between June 2017 and July 2018. Block.one said that it accepted the settlement while “neither admitting nor denying” the SEC’s findings. ERC-20 is a protocol that defines certain rules and standards for issuing tokens on the Ethereum's blockchain. What did the SEC find? SEC’s investigation found out that Block.one raised “several billion dollars” as part of its ICO, but the company said that it would use the capital for general expenses, and also to develop software and promote blockchains based on that software. However, Block.one did not register its 900 million-token offering as securities in accordance with the federal securities laws, nor did it qualify for or…
