SEC revokes registration of Cryptoasset

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has punished a firm with a fine and revocation of its registration for undertaking fraudulent investment-taking activities.

In an order dated Feb. 2, the SEC revoked the certificate of incorporation and registration as a corporation of Cryptoasset Trading OPC.

Cryptoasset has likewise been fined P1 million for offering securities to the public without prior registration and license from the SEC.

Cryptoasset is registered as a one-person corporation, whose primary purpose is to engage in “buying, selling distributing, marketing on wholesale and retail basis insofar as may be permitted by law, all kinds of goods, wares and merchandise of every kind and description, and enter into all kinds of contracts for export, import, purchase, acquisition sale on wholesale and retail basis.”

However, it is not allowed to engage in investment solicitation or investment-taking activity from public investors.

Investigation by the SEC’s Enforcement and Investor Protection Department showed that Cryptoasset has been offering investment opportunities to the public with a minimum investment of P1,000 with four options to choose from. The various options could yield as much as 50 percent profit in just 40 days.

According to the SEC, Cryptoasset’s investment scheme of promising a high return of 50 percent profit in just 40 days has the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme, an investment program that offers impossibly high returns and pays these returns to early investors out of the capital contributed by later investors.

Further, Cryptoasset’s investment scheme operates to defraud investors as it deceives the investing public by making it appear that they have the authority to deal in securities.

“This also amounts to serious misrepresentation as to what the corporation can do or is doing to the damage and prejudice to the investing public,” the SEC said.