The crypto-entrepreneur says the regulator is going to dismiss all the charges relating to his promotion of the Sparkster $30 million ICO in the year 2018.
Token Metrics CEO Ian Balina announced Wednesday that the SEC will likely dismiss his case and end a three-year litigation over claims that the company violated U.S. securities laws.
“It’s official: The SEC is dropping its case against me,” Balina posted on Twitter. “Cryptocurrency is oppressive rather than about my personae- it is something larger that represents justice.”
Balina’s accusations result from an order from September 2022 that alleged his failure to report his compensation while advertising Sparkster. Sparkster (SPRK) is the initial coin offer.
Token Metrics, which backed the CEO’s claims, tweeted on Monday that the accusations have been “dropped,” adding that “a possible shift in enforcement trends” was taking place.
It’s also worth noting that the SEC has yet to issue any official statements on the issue. Balina and the SEC as well as Balina didn’t immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comments.
The SEC has not yet officially made any changes to the situation from September 2022, the date it announced that Sparkster and its CEO Sajjad Daysa had agreed to settle for $35 million.
“At a time like that, Balina took to a statement saying, ‘This trivially brought SEC charges are the worst thing that could happen to the rest of the crypto industry.'” “If private sales with a discount are considered illegal, the entire crypto VC space is doomed,” he added.
The complaint by the SEC alleged that Balina had received an additional 30% on his investment of $5 million in SPRK tokens, but he did not disclose the source of this bonus when promoting the tokens to his large online following.
A judge ruled in May of 2024 that a court In May 2024, a judge ruled that the SPRK tokens could be considered securities that fall under the jurisdiction of the SEC.
If the regulator confirms it, the dismissal will follow several recent SEC decisions to end the cases against cryptocurrency companies after President Trump named Mark Uyeda as acting SEC Chair in January following Gary Gensler’s resignation.
So far, the SEC has been able to dismiss numerous accusations of violations in the securities industry against crypto-related companies like Binance, Coinbase, OpenSea, Robinhood, Uniswap, Gemini, Kraken, and many more.
