Charges over bitcoin offering

The US Securities and Exchange Commission says its newly created cyber unit had filed its first charges against an ‘initial coin offering’, alleging that a privately held company called PlexCorps and its top two officials had defrauded investors.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission says its newly created cyber unit had filed its first charges against an ‘initial coin offering’, alleging that a privately held company called PlexCorps and its top two officials had defrauded investors.

The SEC said in a statement that it had obtained an emergency order to halt the PlexCorps initial coin offering, which had raised up to $15m (€12.6m) from thousands of investors since August by falsely promising a 13-fold profit in less than a month.