The SEC has won in court against crypto YouTuber Ian Balina after a Texas federal judge said his involvement in a crypto token ICO broke securities laws.
A U.S. federal judge sided with the SEC, finding that Ian Balina broke securities laws by participating in a 2018 crypto token ICO.
Crypto YouTuber Ian Balina sold unregistered securities when he bought Sparkster tokens and offered them to United States investors in an investment pool, a Texas federal court judge has ruled. “The Court has determined, as a matter of law, that U.S. securities laws are applicable to Balina’s actions and that SPRK tokens qualify as securities,” Judge David Alan EzraEzra agreed with the SEC that Balina “purposefully targeted United States investors” and knocked back the influencer’s summary judgment bid, claiming the SEC had no sway as the sales happened overseas.
The SEC did not succeed in its claim that Balina failed to properly disclose a compensation agreement made with Sparkster CEO Sajjad Daya, as the court identified factual inconsistencies.The SEC said in its lawsuit that between May and July 2018, Balina purchased $5 million worth of SPRK, promoted it across multiple social media platforms and made a Telegram group to form an investment pool for the tokens.
It added that he didn’t tell investors that Sparkster had given him a 30% bonus for the tokens he had purchased. Balina said the SEC’s alleged bonus was a standard volume discount in a private presale deal.In September 2022, it made a deal with the SEC to destroy its remaining SPRK tokens and remove them from trading platforms without admitting or denying the regulator’s claims.
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