Issuer Settles Unregistered ICO Charges, Agrees to Return Funds and Register Tokens

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against blockchain technology company Blockchain of Things Inc. (BCOT) for conducting an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO) of digital tokens. According to the SEC’s order, New York-based startup BCOT conducted the ICO starting in December 2017 after the Commission had warned in its DAO Report of Investigation that ICOs can be securities offerings. BCOT raised nearly $13 million to develop and implement its business plans, including developing its blockchain-based technology and platform. As noted in the SEC’s order, BCOT explained that its platform was intended to allow third-party developers to build applications for message transmission and logging, digital asset generation, and digital asset transfer. The SEC’s order found that BCOT sold its digital tokens to U.S.