The Securities and Substitution Commission (SEC) has charged Sergii Grybniak, the founder of the initial coin offering (ICO) project Opporty, co-ordinate to a Jan. 21 press release. Despite raising approximately $600,000, the commission targeted Grybniak for falsely declaring the project as "100% SEC compliant."

Opporty launched its ICO between September and October 2022. The project purported to provide a "blockchain-based ecosystem for modest businesses and their customers," primarily in the United States. The platform was meant to be a place where small businesses could list their services and enter into agreement via smart contracts.

The ICO for the OPP token raised $600,000 from approximately 200 investors, some of whom were located in the U.S.

While the SEC'southward principal charge is for conducting an unregistered sale of securities, it besides claims that the project fabricated many misleading and imitation statements to encourage investment.

Among them, Opporty claimed to have onboarded thousands of "verified providers" to practise business on the platform, the majority of which "had expressed no such willingness," the SEC complaint reads.

A claim of having more than 17 million businesses in its database was revealed to be a simple buy of a third-party catalog.

Finally, the SEC alleges that the project lied most a partnership with a "major software company."

The accused founder is a resident of Brooklyn, against whom the SEC seeks injunctions against time to come digital offerings, the return of all ICO coin and civil penalties.

Inconsistent targeting from the SEC

The example against Opporty is an outlier given the caliber of projects previously targeted past the SEC.

Notable cases include the litigation for Telegram's $1.7 billion ICO, Kik'southward offering for $97 1000000, and recently, Boaz Manor's $xxx million token sale.

By dissimilarity, other projects received far more lenient handling. The SEC settled with EOS parent company Cake.one for $24 million, out of a $iv billion ICO. Debates around XRP'south security condition did not withal event in an investigation past the regulator. Other projects, such every bit TurnKey Jet, received no-activity messages past the SEC.

While the SEC pledged to offer more lenient and flexible treatment to crypto projects in 2022, information technology appears that some projects will remain under scrutiny.

1 possible distinction for Opporty is that, in addition to offer unregistered securities, the project allegedly lied about its achievements. In addition, unlike many similar ICOs, the offering did non explicitly exclude U.S. investors from participating.