Diesen Artikel teilen
SEC Charges Adult Entertainment Token Platform With 2017 ICO Fraud
The U.S. SEC has charged the CEO of an online adult entertainment marketplace with running a fraudulent initial coin offering scheme.
Von David Pan
The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission charged Jonathan Lucas, 27, the CEO of an online adult entertainment marketplace, with running a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) scheme.
According to the SEC’s lawsuit, the company claimed that investors could purchase its token and use them to request certain actions in a live adult performance on the platform.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Verpassen Sie keine weitere Geschichte.Abonnieren Sie noch heute den Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter. Alle Newsletter ansehen
“Fantasy Market is a role-playing performance marketplace for live, client-controlled digital performances,” according to the company’s LinkedIn profile. “Through the use of our tokens, you control what the performers say and do during the show.”
All the team members in the company are fictional except for Lucas, according to the complaint, which listed many false statements made by the company in promoting its ICO.
The ICO took place from Sept. 3 - Oct. 16, 2017, aiming to raise $25 million, with 125 million FMTs for sale and pricing each token at 20 cents, according to the token’s white paper.
In the six-week period, Fantasy Market raised about $63,000 in cryptocurrency from more than 100 investors in its fraudulent offer and sale of unregistered digital securities -- CEO Lucas actually claimed to the press he had raised $2 million towards the $25 million goal.
The SEC said Lucas promoted the sale of FMTs by misleading prospective investors.
He told the investors there had been a private pre-sale for accredited investors whereas it never happened. Lucas also said the token would be listed on major exchanges and the company had verified that its investors were accredited; neither of the claims are true.
The company made a further false statement when it affirmed all of its transactions are secured because users could only purchase the token with bitcoin or litecoin on ERC-20 blockchain, which was not the case.
In fact, according to the SEC’s charges, no token was every issued and his ethereum application never existed. The money raised went to marketing rather than building the product.
The SEC filing was accompanied by a consent judgment, meaning that the defendant accepted the ruling against him.
SEC image via Shutterstock
Mehr für Sie
Was Sie wissen sollten:
- 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.
Mehr für Sie
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates 25 Basis Points, With Two Voting for Steady Policy
The anticipated move comes as policymakers are still operating without several key economic data releases that remain delayed or suspended due to the U.S. government shutdown.
Was Sie wissen sollten:
- As expected, the Federal Reserve trimmed its benchmark fed funds rate range by 25 basis points on Wednesday afternoon.
- Today's cut is notable given the unusually large amount of public dissension among Fed members for further monetary ease.
- Two Fed members dissented from the rate cut, preferring instead to hold rates steady, while one member voted for a 50 basis point rate cut.
Top Stories
