WASHINGTON—A new report shows U.S. regulators have imposed fines and penalties totaling $2.5 billion on crypto firms and individuals to date.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has imposed the most fines, followed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the latest government agency to come after crypto firms, reported Bitcoin.com, citing data from an Elliptic report.
“Contrary to the widely-held belief that the cryptoasset industry is unregulated, U.S. regulators are increasingly imposing significant financial penalties on crypto businesses – for fraud, breaches of AML regulations, offering unregistered securities and sanctions violations,” the report stated.
The SEC has fined crypto firms and individuals $1.69 billion so far, $1.38 billion of which relate to unregistered security offerings, Bitcoin.com explained.