SEC targets ICOBox founder Nikolay Evdokimov

Nikolay Evdokimov, the founder of ICO promotion platform ICOBox, is facing disgorgement penalties from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for his role in launching an unregistered ICO sale which raised $14.6 million in 2017.

ICOBox was a website and platform for ICO promotion and incubation which acted as a “business facilitator” for companies launching their token sales.

However, Evdokimov authorised the sale of ‘ICOS’ tokens to raise funds for the development of the platform, which drew the ire of US regulators.

In total, ICOBox’s token sale raised $14.6 million from over 2,000 investors. However, complainants now say that the token is worthless and the token sale was unregistered.

The SEC has now submitted documents to the California Central District Court requesting a new motion for a default judgement against Evdokimov and ICOBox.

The regulator, which originally brought charges against ICOBox in September 2019, was required by the court to file a default motion by January 10 or face dismissal of the case.

It has been revealed that in addition to ICOBox’s token sale, the project also raised up to $650 million on behalf of its clients, therefore acting as an unlicensed broker.

In total, the SEC is seeking disgorgement penalties of $16,059,429, which includes over $1.45 million in prejudgement interest.

In addition, Evdokimov has been personally fined $189,426 in civil penalties for his role in the ICO sale.

SEC crypto crackdown

The SEC has been particularly active in recent months with a number of cryptocurrency and ICO related cases.

On January 8, Coin Rivet reported that the SEC had updated its examination priorities for 2020, where the regulator made specific mention to its monitoring of digital assets and new risks for retail investors.

Already this year, the SEC has reached a settlement with Longfin CEO Venkata Meenavalli for $400,000 and has continued its landmark case against messaging app Telegram.

In July 2018, ICOBox’s co-founder Daria Generalova told Coin Rivet that he was unsurprised by the number of ‘dead’ tokens, saying that the days of raising funds on a whitepaper alone were over and projects now needed to prove they had a truly special product.

According to CoinGecko, ICOBox’s ICOS token now has a market cap of just $24,900 and is trading at around $0.09 – down from all-time highs of over $50 in early 2018.