Finra Charges HempCoin with Fraud in a Cryptocurrency First

Both the U.S. SEC and FINRA have accused several defendants this week of securities fraud and other cryptocurrency-related crimes.

In a first for the regulatory agency, the U.S. Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) ruled Tuesday that Timothy Tilton Ayre, the owner of Rocky Mountain Ayre (RMA), was guilty of securities fraud after selling and marketing an unregistered security in the form of a digital asset called HempCoin.

Ayre had allegedly not registered HempCoin as a security although it was offered as being backed by RMA shares. According to the FINRA report, investors mined, and subsequently traded over 81 million HempCoins between 2016 and 2017, in exchanges such as C-Cex and Yobit.

Franklin Ogele, Ayre’s defense attorney, said they plan to contest the charges because HempCoin has not officially been labeled as a security. Ayre will have the possibility to argue his case in front of a disciplinary panel. If found guilty, he could be looking to pay substantial fines, and even receive a suspension order from the regulatory agency.

The SEC Also Cracks the Whip

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also accused two separate companies this week for cryptocurrency-related crimes.

Eli Lewitt and Lenny Kugel, heads of TokenLot, were…

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