The price of bitcoin sank late Wednesday after a report by the Wall Street Journal that the Securities and Exchange Commission is ramping up pressure on the initial-coin-offerings industry, issuing scores of subpoenas and information requests to companies. The Journal reported the SEC is seeking information about the structure of ICO sales and pre-sales. Bitcoin immediately fell about 2% after the report, and was last trading at $10,346, according to Coindesk. The SEC has previously suggested that many ICOs may be violating securities laws. In December, a new SEC cyber unit took its first action, halting an allegedly fraudulent ICO. An ICO is a fund-raising method in which a company issues its own cryptocurrency, typically in exchange for bitcoin. The process has significantly fewer regulatory hoops to jump through than an IPO, and the ICO market has been booming, with $6.5 billion raised last year. They’re also highly risky — according to a new survey, 46% of new ICOs in 2017 either flopped out of the gate or have since gone out of business.
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