The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has clearly been on a strict journey with its actions against the cryptocurrency realm. Regulatory scrutiny started sometime after the fall of the FTX exchange. The SEC also stepped up its actions when it sued Kraken in February, for which the commission received quite a bit of backlash.
The latest victim of SEC scrutiny is Tron founder Justin Sun. According to the latterdetails of the SEC, the committee has indicted Sun on charges of selling and airdropping unregistered securities, in addition to fraud and market manipulation.
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JUST IN:
SEC is suing Tron founder Justin Sun for fraud and market manipulation.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) March 22, 2023
SEC is suing Justin SUN for selling TRX and BTT
The SEC press release said the case was filed on the grounds of the sale of TRX and BitTorrent, which the commission described as unregistered securities. The commission also alleged that Sun was conducting wash trading to manipulate the TRX secondary market.
SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said in a statement that:
“This case again demonstrates the risky investors face when crypto asset securities are offered and sold without proper disclosure.”
Read also: Telegram adds Tether (USDT) transfer feature
SEC Enforcement Chief Gubir Grewal said in a separate statement that “Sun paid celebrities with millions of social media followers to tout the unregistered offerings while specifically instructing them not to disclose their compensation.”
The SEC has also charged celebrities including Jake Paul, Lindsey Lohan and Soulja Boy for promoting TRX and BTT tokens.