Mango DAO has agreed to settle charges with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over the sale of “MNGO” tokens without admitting or denying the allegations by the regulator.
In a statement Friday, the SEC said it filed settled charges against Mango DAO and Blockworks Foundation, a Panama entity, for “engaging in unregistered broker activity in connection with various crypto assets being offered and sold as securities on the Mango Markets platform.”
Mango agreed to pay nearly $700,000 in civil penalties, destroy their MNGO tokens, and request the removal of MNGO tokens from trading platforms, among other things.
“The SEC’s complaint alleges that by skirting the SEC’s registration provisions, Mango DAO, Blockworks Foundation, and Mango Labs deprived investors of critical protections afforded by the federal securities laws.”
– SEC
According to the SEC, since August 2021, these two entities have raised over $70 million from unregistered offers and sales of MNGO.
Moreover, they operated as unregistered brokers by “actively soliciting and recruiting users” to trade securities, giving advice and valuations to merits of investments, and also helping with securities transactions.
Jorge G. Tenreiro, Acting Chief of the SEC’s Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit, said:
“Since the inception of our crypto enforcement program, our view has been that the label ‘DAO’ does not change the reality of who is behind a project, what activities they engage in, or whether their activities need to be registered. Nor does engaging in intermediation of securities with the aid of automated or open source software change the nature of such activities.”
Additional reporting by Ibiam Wayas
