5 days ago
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Unicoin CEO Alex Konanykhin said he's asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to propulsion its probe against the crypto cognition and hasn't yet received a response.
Unicoin represented a last changeable against the manufacture from erstwhile Chair Gary Gensler's SEC, which informed the steadfast successful an authoritative notice precocious past twelvemonth that the regulator intended to impeach it of fraud, deceptive practices and handling unregistered securities. The probe was announced successful the last days of President Joe Biden's medication successful December, earlier the SEC's enactment was taken implicit by those selected by crypto instrumentality President Donald Trump.
The CEO, who has watched a twelve different crypto companies fto disconnected the hook of their enforcement actions by the agency's caller management, told CoinDesk helium wrote a March 17 missive to the agency's caller Crypto Task Force, asking astir the investigation.
"I question your guidance connected the champion mode to code this maltreatment of powerfulness and bring it to an end," Konanykhin wrote successful the letter, a transcript of which has been reviewed by CoinDesk. He requested the substance beryllium terminated and that the behaviour of the enforcement authoritative progressive with the lawsuit astatine the bureau beryllium reviewed, due to the fact that of his "willingness to weaponize the SEC's authorization for governmental purposes."
A spokesperson for the SEC declined to remark connected Unicoin's presumption connected Wednesday. A Unicoin spokesperson told CoinDesk connected Tuesday that the institution "remains successful the last stages of the SEC reappraisal process. As of now, we person not received immoderate caller updates oregon ceremonial feedback from the SEC regarding our registration. We are afloat committed to compliance and transparency, and we proceed to enactment toward securing the indispensable approvals for our planned offerings."
The CEO believes his company, which suggests investors tin spot up to 8,000% returns, was targeted by bureau harassment past year, helium said successful an interrogation with CoinDesk successful Washington.
"They demanded from america to committedness not to spell nationalist successful the United States, not to ICO, not to rise funds," helium said. "So I packed my bags and moved to Europe to resume business."
He said the predetermination of Trump and the president's promises to marque the U.S. the planetary crypto superior made him travel backmost to New York from Switzerland, with an intent to spell nationalist here.
"We thought the warfare was over, and we said to the SEC, 'Hey, we're resuming our activity," Konanykhin said. At that point, the bureau announced it intended to people the institution with civilian charges.
Konanykhin noted that the regulator had accused them of violating securities laws with an airdrop. Konanykhin argued that it's a communal selling strategy seen successful galore crypto assets, and is "what the president of the United States is doing with his memecoin."
"It's embarrassing that the warfare connected crypto inactive continues," helium said. If the bureau continues its warfare connected crypto by pursuing Unicoin, "I deliberation truthful galore observers are going to beryllium astonished."
Unicoin started arsenic an effort to make a "more transparent and reliable alternative" to Bitcoin successful the U.S. (which, the Unicoin website said, has returned 9 cardinal percent to investors implicit the past 10 years). He said immoderate analysts judge bitcoin was "created by Chinese intelligence, but cipher truly knows by whom."
"I'm elated by the accidental to enactment successful making American the crypto superior of the satellite arsenic the president pledged helium wants to do, adjacent though it's highly annoying to inactive person the bequest persecution from the SEC," Konanykhin said.
Meanwhile, helium said, "we are preparing actively for going public."
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