The SEC has just filed a lawsuit against Unicoin, its CEO, and promoters, accusing them of “a massive securities offering fraud” amounting to more than $100 million. The SEC had reportedly previously tried to negotiate a settlement, but Unicoin refused it.
The SEC warned Unicoin of impending civil charges in December 2024, after the company decided after Trump’s election that they would breach a standstill agreement they’d entered with the agency.
The House Financial Services Republicans and the White House (now deleted) tagged either a hacked or fake account in their announcements that Paul Atkins was sworn in as SEC Chair. The "Atkins" account immediately started asking for crypto.
Meet our new SEC Chair, Paul Atkins. Who better for the role than a Project 2025 architect who blamed the FTX fraud on the US not being "accommodating" to blockchain technology?
@molly0xfff Who better to regulate financial markets than Paul Atkins, a Project 2025 architect who blamed the FTX fraud on the US not being "accommodating" to blockchain technology? #sec #trumpadministration #project2025 #paulatkins ♬ original sound - Molly White
Coinbase says that the SEC has agreed to drop the enforcement case against the company. It only cost them $75 million in political contributions.
(Don’t forget that $50 million of those contributions appeared to be blatantly illegal, although Trump is already hard at work making the Federal Elections Commission even less effective than it previously was.)
Although early reporting suggested the SEC would likely look to “potentially freeze some litigation that does not involve allegations of fraud”, the first case the SEC has proposed freezing is SEC v. Binance: a case alleging serious fraud and knowing violation of US securities laws.
apparently preventing fraud is “anti-crypto”.
according to this Fortune headline, the SEC going after fraud and deceptive business practices after a company publicly announced they were going to breach a previous agreement with the agency is an “anti-crypto campaign”
interesting, Roger Stone deleted one of his tweets shilling a "MAGA Memecoin" after I pointed out that these tweets likely violate SEC rules
most of his other promo tweets remain, though, and have similar issues
The SEC is asking the judge in the Terra lawsuit to order $4.2 billion in disgorgement, a $420 million penalty against Terraform Labs, and a $100 million penalty against Do Kwon.
They also want Kwon banned from serving as an officer or director of a publicly traded company.
Verdict against Terraform Labs and Do Kwon, responsible for the Terra/Luna algostablecoin collapse in May 2022.
![UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Plaintiffs, v TERRAFORM LABS PTE. LTD. and DO HYEONG KWON, Defendant. Verdict 1. On the SEC's first claim, under Section 17, we the jury find defendant Terraform Labs Pte. Ltd. ("Terraform"): Liable [If you answer "Liable" to Question 1, answer Question 2. Otherwise skip to Question 3.] 2. Having found Terraform liable on the SEC's first claim, we the jury find that Terraform acted [choose the highest you found]: Recklessly 3. On the SEC's first claim, under Section 17, we the jury find defendant Do Hyeong Kwon ("Kwon"): Liable [If you answer "Liable" to Question 3, answer Question 4. Otherwise, skip to Question 5.J 4. Having found Kwon liable on the SEC's first claim, we the jury find that Kwon acted [choose the highest you found]: Intentionally 5. On the SEC's second claim, for intentional or reckless violation of Rule 10b-5, we the jury find defendant Terraform: Liable](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/c71a3825f36ca1a65eac_1.png)
![As the SEC has dropped the majority of its ongoing lawsuits and investigations into cryptocurrency firms, most recently the Immutable web3 gaming company, a few firms seem to be getting a little nervous. Unicoin, a firm that announced shortly after Trump’s election that they would breach the 2024 “standstill” agreement they had reached with the SEC [I72] (and then did so), is now writing letters to the agency asking why their case has yet to be dropped. “We thought the war was over, and we said to the SEC, ‘Hey, we’re resuming our activity,’” explained Unicoin CEO Alex Konanykhin. Like some other industry executives, Konanykhin has gone beyond merely asking for an end to the enforcement case, and in his letter seeks retribution against the SEC employee who led the investigation into his company.14](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/f8b26d94775ddfc5a65c_Screenshot-2025-05-21-at-1.52.33---PM.png)
![6. On the SEC's second claim, for intentional or reckless violation of Rule 106-5, we the jury find defendant Kwon: Liable [If you answered "Not Liable" to Question 5, do not answer question 7. If you answered "Liable" to Question 5, proceed to Question 7.] 7. On the claim for control person liability regarding Terraform's violation of Rule 10b-5, we the jury find defendant Kwon: Liable FOREPERSON Date: 04/05/24](https://storage.mollywhite.net/micro/a4397273203403c5ae0a_2.png)