Share this article
Tezos Co-Founder Sanctioned By US Financial Watchdog
Arthur Breitman, co-founder of cryptocurrency project Tezos, has been barred by FINRA from any association with broker-dealers for two years.
By Wolfie Zhao
Updated Sep 13, 2021, 7:51 a.m. Published Apr 20, 2018, 8:20 a.m.
The co-founder of Tezos, the cryptocurrency project that made headlines with its $232 million initial coin offering last year, has received a sanction order from a U.S. financial regulator.
According to a report by Reuters, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) prohibited Arthur Breitman from association with broker-dealers for two years and handed him a $20,000 fine over allegations that he made false statements about the project while employed at investment bank Morgan Stanley. Breitman did not admit or deny the allegations, the report added.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Approved by the U.S. Congress in 2007, FINRA is a self-regulatory body with oversight of dealers and brokers in the country. Breitman was registered with the agency during his employment in Morgan Stanley from 2014 to 2015, Reuters said.
The regulator alleged that Breitman failed to disclose his involvement in developing and pitching for Tezos during his time at the bank, according to the report. He thus violated a rule mandating that registered broker-dealers must to notify employers of side businesses that are expected to bring financial compensation.
Breitman also allegedly provided false information when answering questionnaires from his employer over any outside business activities.
While the report indicated that an attorney for Breitman played down the impact of the sanction on the Tezos blockchain network, it comes at a time when the project is still going through close scrutiny in various legal cases.
Following its record breaking ICO in July of last year, at least four class action suits have emerged since November 2017 against the firm, alleging it violated U.S. laws by issuing tokens that are in effect unregistered securities.
FINRA image via Shutterstock
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
Ethereum’s P2P Layer Is Improving Just as Institutional ETH Buys Pick Up
Early PeerDAS performance is proof that the Ethereum Foundation can now ship complex networking improvements at scale.
What to know:
- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that the network is addressing its lack of peer-to-peer networking expertise, highlighting the progress of PeerDAS.
- PeerDAS, a prototype for Data Availability Sampling, is crucial for Ethereum's scalability and decentralization through sharding.
- BitMine Immersion Technologies has significantly increased its Ethereum holdings, viewing it as a strategic investment in the network's future scaling capabilities.
Top Stories
