SEC Charges Crypto Trading Platform Beaxy and its Executives for Operating an Unregistered Exchange, Broker, and Clearing Agency

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the crypto asset trading platform beaxy.com (the Beaxy Platform) and its executives for failing to register as a national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency. The SEC also charged the founder of the platform, Artak Hamazaspyan, and a company he controlled, Beaxy Digital, Ltd., with raising $8 million in an unregistered offering of the Beaxy token (BXY) and alleged that Hamazaspyan misappropriated at least $900,000 for personal use, including gambling. Finally, the SEC charged market makers operating on the Beaxy Platform as unregistered dealers. According to the SEC’s complaint, since October 2019, Nicholas Murphy and Randolph Bay Abbott, through the company they managed, Windy Inc., maintained and provided the Beaxy Platform as a web-based trading platform that facilitated buying and selling of crypto assets that were offered and sold as securities.