🏛SEC fines crypto fund $50K and issues cease-and-desist

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has ordered fund manager CoinAlpha Advisors LLC to pay a $50,000 fine in response to what it has called an unregistered securities sale. CoinAlpha had raised around $600,000 after forming the fund in October 2017. While the fund had filed for an exemption the SEC noted that it was not eligible for such an exemption and had made no other efforts to register. Furthermore, the SEC said that CoinAlpha had failed to conduct know your customer (KYC) procedures to ensure that all investors were accredited, though it did hire a third-party firm after being initially contacted by the agency.