The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has fined BarnBridge DAO (BOND) and its founders more than $1.7 million for allegedly offering unregistered crypto assets.
The SEC says BarnBridge, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, marketed and offered a product called “SMART Yield bonds” and compared them to asset-backed securities.
A BarnBridge white paper advertised that SMART Yield bonds would “reflect the safety and security of highly rated debt instruments offered by traditional financial markets” while still delivering “outrageous” returns.
The regulator alleges that BarnBridge also managed SMART Yield pools as unregistered investment companies. In total, SMART Yield has raised more than $509 million in investment from investors.
BarnBridge has neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings, but agreed to forfeit nearly $1.5 million in proceeds from the sale of SMART Yield. The project’s co-founders, Tyler Ward and Troy Murray, also each agreed to pay civil penalties of $125,000.
Coinbase discontinued trading services for BOND, BarnBridge’s original asset, in September. The top US crypto exchange says it regularly reviews digital assets traded on its platform to ensure they meet their listing standards.
BOND is trading at $3.89 at the time of writing. The crypto asset ranked 661st by market capitalization is up almost 4% in the past 24 hours.
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