SEC claims that Ian Balina broke securities regulations while conducting Sparkster’s $30,000 ICO. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has arrested crypto influencer Ian Balina. It alleges that the crypto personality failed to file a registration declaration with the commission for the sale and offering of Sparkster’s SPRK coins and that no exemption was available from registration.
According to the SEC, he also allegedly failed disclose the compensation he received for promoting Sparkster’s SPRK initial cryptocurrency offering ( ICO ICO ) via social media.
Sparkster gave investors the opportunity to purchase SPRK tokens to get a piece of its “no code” software development platform. This allowed users to create software without any technical coding skills. A demo of the product can be viewed
Ian Balina will be banned for offering securities again
Injunctive relief,” disgorgement, civil penalties and other appropriate and needed equitable relief are the SEC’s demands. If they are true, Balina will be unable promote securities again.
Also, the filing argues that all contributions in Ethereum to the ICO were made in the United States.
The filing states that “[Users’] ETH contributions were validated and verified by a network nodes on Ethereum blockchain, which are more densely clustered in the United States than any other country.” These transactions were therefore performed in the United States.
Twitter was used by the influencer to declare that it was “excited” to make this fight public.
He said that the frivolous SEC charges set a bad precedent in the crypto industry. The entire crypto VC industry is at risk if investing in a private sale is a crime.
Ian Balina’s online social influence
Balina had around 143,000 Twitter followers, 110,000 YouTube subscribers, books on Amazon, and regular media appearances in the Wall Street Journal and CNBC.
This Ugandan-born entrepreneur quit his IBM sales job to promote cryptocurrency full time in 2017. Content such as “How To Make Millions With Initial Coin Offerings, (ICOs),” has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
According to the SEC filing, Balina gave the token a 90% Hall of Fame ranking on his ICO investment spreadsheet and promoted the token to around 50 Telegram users.
Cayman Islands-incorporated firm has been defunct. The last tweet was made by their company account in 2021.
The SPRK ICO was not registered by the SEC. It raised approximately \$30 million from almost 4,000 investors in the United States and abroad.
Balina signed a contract to invest \$5 million in Sparkster before she promoted the SPRK tokens offered on YouTube, Telegram and other social media platforms.
The SEC claimed that he accepted a 30% bonus from Sparkster for the tokens he bought in the Sparkster Offering. However, Balina allegedly did not disclose the consideration he received to promote him.
