The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fined BarnBridge DAO (BOND) and its founders more than $1.7 million for offering unregistered cryptocurrency asset securities.
The SEC said BarnBridge, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, marketed and offered a product called the “SMART Yield Bond” and compared it to asset-backed securities.
A BarnBridge white paper advertised that SMART Yield bonds would “reflect the safety and security of highly rated debt products offered by traditional finance” while delivering “significant” returns.
Regulators allege BarnBridge also operated the SMART Yield pool as an unregistered investment company. In total, SMART Yield has secured more than $509 million in investment from investors.
BarnBridge did not admit or deny the SEC’s findings, but agreed to give up approximately $1.5 million in proceeds from the sale of SMART Yield. The project’s co-founders Tyler Ward and Troy Murray also agreed to pay civil penalties of $125,000 each.
Coinbase discontinued trading services for BarnBridge’s native asset, BOND, last September. The leading U.S. cryptocurrency exchange said it regularly reviews digital assets traded on its platform to ensure they meet its listing criteria.
BOND is trading at $3.89 at the time of this writing. The 661st-ranked cryptocurrency asset by market capitalization is up nearly 4% in the last 24 hours.
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