BarnBridge DAO Agrees to Stop Unregistered Offer and Sale of Structured Finance Crypto Product

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that BarnBridge DAO, a purportedly decentralized autonomous organization, and its two founders, Tyler Ward and Troy Murray, will pay more than $1.7 million to settle charges that they failed to register BarnBridge’s offer and sale of structured crypto asset securities known as SMART Yield bonds. The Commission also charged the respondents with violations stemming from operating BarnBridge’s SMART Yield pools as unregistered investment companies. To settle the SEC’s charges, BarnBridge agreed to disgorge nearly $1.5 million of proceeds from the sales, and Ward and Murray each agreed to pay a $125,000 civil penalties. “The use of blockchain technology for the unregistered offer and sale of structured finance products to retail investors runs afoul of the securities laws," said Gurbir S.