The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against Mango DAO, Blockworks Foundation, and Mango Labs LLC for offering unregistered securities. The case centers around the sale of MNGO tokens and the operation of Mango Markets without proper registration.
Mango Markets Hit With SEC Charges
The SEC
alleges
that since August 2021, Mango DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), and Blockworks Foundation, based in Panama, raised over $70 million from the unregistered sale of MNGO tokens. The entities sold these tokens as governance assets for Mango Markets, a crypto asset trading platform.
In addition, Blockworks Foundation and Mango Labs were accused of acting as unregistered brokers by soliciting users to trade securities, providing investment advice, and facilitating transactions on the Mango Markets platform.
“Since the inception of our crypto enforcement program, our view has been that the label ‘DAO’ does not change the reality of who is behind a project, what activities they engage in, or whether their activities need to be registered,” Jorge G. Tenreiro, the acting chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit remarked.
As part of the settlement, Mango DAO, Blockworks Foundation, and Mango Labs agreed to pay nearly $700,000 in civil penalties and comply with several corrective measures, including destroying MNGO tokens and requesting their removal from trading platforms.
The settlements await approval by the court, and the entities neither admitted nor denied the accusations. Three days ago, the SEC
resolved a case
in a similar fashion involving Trusttoken Inc. and Truecoin LLC regarding misrepresentations related to TUSD. In Mango DAO’s case, the SEC stressed that the use of DAOs or open-source software does not excuse entities from adhering to federal securities regulations.
What do you think about the settlement between the U.S. securities regulator and the three entities? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.