Members of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s staff have been hearing recently from a former colleague with an urgent question: Why aren’t you cracking down on these initial coin offerings?
Initial coin offerings are a relatively new method that entrepreneurs have used to raise money for start-ups, by selling custom-built virtual currencies. The practice has taken off this year, despite the warnings of regulators and the uncertainty of the rules concerning the fund-raising method.
Joseph Grundfest, who was a commissioner at the S.E.C. in the 1980s and is now a law and business professor at Stanford, said he had been contacting current commission officials and staff to urge them to bring cases, and fast.
via Initial Coin Offerings Horrify a Former S.E.C. Regulator – The New York Times