This time it's Opporty's turn, ICO launched between September and October 2018 by Sergii Grybniak who, according to the press release issued yesterday by the SEC itself, ended up in the clutches of the Securities and Exchange Commission for declaring its project 100% compliant to the SEC directives; the platform, whose goal was to offer small and medium-sized businesses a virtual space through which to present their services and enter into agreements via smart contracts, had raised just over half a million dollars from about 200 investors, some of whom are resident in the USA.
However, according to the SEC, Grybniak allegedly released numerous misleading or blatantly false information in an attempt to promote its initiative; in particular, says the SEC, the CEO of Opporty said he had a database with 17mln of customers when, in reality, this database was never owned by the company but was simply purchased.
As anyone can understand, therefore, there is a big difference between claiming to be in contact with 17 million companies and having limited themselves to buying a database from a third-party company; basically, just to give an example, it's as if I claimed to have customers all over the city of New York when in reality I only have the phone book in hand.
Grybniak, currently residing in the USA, therefore risks having to return all the 600 thousand dollars collected during the launch of the ICO and an interdiction from continuing to operate in the sector.
Many have highlighted how the fact that the SEC has moved to pursue such a case, in which the collection of money has been particularly small, suggests that the US institution has decided to change gears and start going down heavy ; normally, in fact, every time we saw the SEC take the field it was ICOs that had raised several billion dollars, in the case of Opporty, however, we are talking about a few pennies, just 600 thousand dollars which, if divided among the 200 investors who participated in the initial offer of coins, makes an investment of just 3 thousand dollars apiece.
In any case, it is evident that the climate, at a global level, has become heavy and that in the current state of things, believing that you can launch an ICO with the same ease with which it was possible to do it up to three years ago is at least naive.
We will see if the market will be able to get around the problem by means of the IEOs, to be honest, however, if I were to manage a large exchange platform I would think very well before going to get into such a dangerous sector, in which a single person is enough false step to destroy everything built in years of hard work.
