The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has slapped BarnBridge DAO (BOND) and its founders with more than $1.7 million worth of penalties for allegedly offering unregistered crypto asset securities.
The SEC says BarnBridge, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, marketed and offered a product called “SMART Yield bonds” and compared them to asset-backed securities.
A BarnBridge white paper advertised that SMART Yield bonds would “mirror the safety and security of highly-rated debt instruments offered by traditional finance,” while still providing an “outsized” return.
The regulator claims BarnBridge also operated SMART Yield pools as unregistered investment companies. In total, SMART Yield secured more than $509 million in investments from investors.
BarnBridge didn’t admit or deny the SEC’s findings but agreed to surrender nearly $1.5 million worth of proceeds from the SMART Yield sales. The project’s co-founders, Tyler Ward and Troy Murray, also each agreed to pay $125,000 civil penalties.
Coinbase discontinued trading services for BOND, BarnBridge’s native asset, back in September. The top US crypto exchange says it regularly reviews digital assets traded on its platform to ensure that they meet their listing standards.
BOND is trading at $3.89 at time of writing. The 661st-ranked crypto asset by market cap is up nearly 4% in the past 24 hours.
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