The founder and CEO of Dragonchain, Joe Roets, says he has a “very strong case” against the allegations from the SEC that the firm sold $16.5 million in unregistered securities.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) publicly disclosed that it was charging Joe Roets for allegedly raising by marketing unregistered crypto securities.
The three organizations connected to Roets including Dragonchain Inc, The Dragon Company, and Dragonchain Foundation, are also charged by the agency.
The SEC claimed the defendants raised $14 million from around 5,000 investors worldwide through the initial coin offering (ICO) of Dragonchain in 2017. Then, between 2019 and 2022, they earned an extra $2.5 million via the steady DRGN token sales.
Roets addressed the SEC’s accusation in an open letter dated May 25 after being previously informed by the agency’s investigation. He claimed that the SEC was “picking and choosing projects to target, typically singling out the ones with largest opportunities to upset existing interests while others got a free pass”, and he is confident he had a “very strong case”.
The SEC has recently intensified its enforcement efforts. It declared that nine crypto tokens listed on Coinbase were considered to be unregistered securities, and it is also reportedly looking into the exchange for letting clients to trade such tokens.
Leaders of the crypto industry, lawmakers, and regulators have all heavily criticized the agency’s “regulation by enforcement” regulatory approach.
