The U.S. SEC accuses the DeFi platform Rari Capital of unregistered securities issuance and reaches a settlement

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reached a settlement regarding its charges against the DeFi platform Rari Capital. The SEC found that the company and its co-founders misled investors and did not register as brokers. The SEC stated that Rari Capital's co-founders Jai Bhavnani, Jack Lipstone, and David Lucid told investors that their managed Earn platform allowed investors to lend tokens to earn returns, which would "automatically and autonomously rebalance" their cryptocurrencies instead of doing it manually, but the company was sometimes unable to do so. The SEC also indicated that they were involved in "unregistered broker activities" related to the Fuse platform. The SEC noted that the two platforms held over $1 billion in crypto assets at their peak. Certain Earn platform investors were also eligible to receive Rari governance tokens, which the agency claimed were unregistered securities.

As part of the settlement agreement, Rari Capital Infrastructure LLC, which acquired Rari Capital in 2022, agreed to cease future violations of securities laws, and Rari's co-founders agreed to pay fines and are banned from serving as executives and directors for five years. According to previous reports, the lending platform Fuse was hacked in May 2022, resulting in the theft of $80 million. Rari Capital subsequently halted new deposits and began to gradually shut down the Fuse platform.