{"id":20204,"date":"2019-04-25T15:43:57","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T15:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe7a400626c3"},"modified":"2019-04-25T15:43:57","modified_gmt":"2019-04-25T15:43:57","slug":"sec-cftc-issue-investment-warning-crypto-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/business\/sec-cftc-issue-investment-warning-crypto-scams","title":{"rendered":"SEC, CFTC Issue Investment Warning on Crypto Scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"bsf_rt_marker\"><\/div><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/sec.jpg\" title=\"\"><\/figure>\n<p>Sensing a rise in crypto-related scams and fraudulent investment schemes, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have issued a joint warning to investors, encouraging them to take a more thorough approach to verifying potential investments in the space.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investor.gov\/introduction-investing\/general-resources\/news-alerts\/alerts-bulletins\/investor-alerts\/investor-3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">warning<\/a> was published on April 24, 2019, by the SEC\u2019s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy and the Office of Customer Education and Outreach at the CFTC.<\/p>\n<p>In the notice, the agencies described crypto-related investment scams in which perpetrators \u2014 disguised as cryptocurrency trading businesses and advisory firms \u2014 collect funds from unsuspecting investors.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn some cases, the fraudsters claim to invest customers\u2019 funds in proprietary crypto trading systems or in \u2018mining\u2019 farms. The fraudsters promise high guaranteed returns (for example, 20-50{}) with little or no risk,\u201d according to the warning. \u201cAfter the investors make an investment, typically using a digital asset such as Bitcoin, the fraudsters in some cases stop communicating with the investors altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The agencies also provided six warning signs that investors should look for before making financial commitments in any crypto-related project.<\/p>\n<p>The agencies\u2019 warning signs include \u201cguaranteed\u201d high investment returns, pressure to buy immediately, unsolicited offers, unlicensed sellers, complicated terminologies and jargon-filled documents, as well as the terms of the potential investment sounding just \u201ctoo good to be true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The SEC and the CFTC also urged potential crypto investors to check <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investor.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Investor.gov<\/a> to cross-reference the licenses of any scheme operators with the SEC\u2019s official database, as any investment that is unregistered or unlicensed is most likely a scam. Those who had invested in what they suspect to be a scam can also report the program and its operators on the site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sensing a rise in crypto-related scams and fraudulent investment schemes, the SEC and the CFTC have issued a joint warning to investors, encouraging them to take a more thorough approach to verifying potential investments in the space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3435,"featured_media":20205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1620,648,1127,1745,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-20204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-cftc","9":"tag-fraud","10":"tag-regulations","11":"tag-scams","12":"tag-sec"},"author_data":{"id":3435,"name":"Jimmy Aki","nicename":"jimmy-aki","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/jimmy-aki-promo-image-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/sec.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}