tl;dr
Unicoin co-founder Alex Konanykhin is seeking to be removed from the SEC's enforcement list, citing the regulator's shift to a more industry-friendly approach under the current administration. The SEC has recently terminated cases against major crypto companies, including Coinbase, Binance, Ripple, ...
Unicoin co-founder Alex Konanykhin is seeking to be removed from the SEC's enforcement list, citing the regulator's shift to a more industry-friendly approach under the current administration. The SEC has recently terminated cases against major crypto companies, including Coinbase, Binance, Ripple, and Kraken.
Unicoin, late on the SEC's radar, faced allegations of fraud, deceptive practices, and handling unregistered securities. Konanykhin claims the firm had sold $3.5 billion worth of Unicoin tokens and embraces transparency despite the scrutiny.
Unicoin's token is considered a security, and despite claiming to have publicly reported with the SEC for over five years, it has yet to register its token with the regulator. The company was forced to move its operations to Europe and commit to avoiding U.S. fundraising.
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak publicly promoted Unicoin's token launch in 2022, expressing hope for its success based on investments. Unicoin co-founder Alex Konanykhin wants to get off the SEC's enforcement list as the regulator retreats from an aggressive crypto stance under the previous Biden administration. "We would like to be next," Konanykhin wrote in a Miami Herald op-ed on Thursday, pointing to the dozen other crypto companies already freed from SEC investigations and lawsuits.
When the SEC began investigating and pursuing cases against crypto companies following the fall of FTX, most of those players were hit with allegations and threats of enforcement actions. Unicoin was late on the SEC’s radar, with the enforcement action against them handed out late last year.
Konanykhin previously claimed that his firm had sold $3.5 billion worth of Unicoin tokens through deals and buy-now-pay-later agreements to about 70,000 investors. While the SEC had been pursuing various crypto firms for offering unregistered securities, with most of those crypto firms claiming that their offerings are not, in fact, securities, Unicoin does the opposite: it claims that its token is a security.
Unicoin first came to the limelight when Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak publicly promoted its token launch in 2022. Wozniak was a panelist on Unicorn Hunters, the investment TV show that launched Unicoin.
"I'm hoping Unicoin's very successful, but at least it's not based on zero, just based on the outcome of investments," Wozniak said of the project.