The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief of the Enforcement dept cyber unit has put down his papers and would quit in August, after serving his 15 years of stint towards the SEC service. The official announcement has come through a press release on SEC’s website, July 29.
Robert A. Cohen, chief of the cyber unit division of the enforcement law is the first chief of the unit for cryptocurrency which was created in 2017, and before that he positioned as a Co-Chief of the Market Abuse Unit in 2015. He brought along with himself a vast experience and understanding of the market structure, insider trading, and manipulation cases including national stock exchanges, dark pools, retail order handling, and order routing. Reportedly, Cohen joined SEC in 2004.
Mr. Cohen had played a very important role in the success of the cyber unit. Under his leadership and strategic thinking towards crime, the cyber unit successfully handled various impactful cases related to cryptocurrency. His supervision improved SEC’s ability to demonstrate crime and respond to new challenges nimbly and altogether, law enforcement division also able to protect the investors. Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement noted.
Role of Cohen as a Chief of the Cyber Unit
Mr. Cohen during his tenure conducted the various investigation. The work includes proceedings againstan infamous Canadian startup Kik for operating an allegedly unregistered $100 million ICO in 2017.
He also took the responsibility of supervising and charging a music producer DJ Khaled and the boxer Floyd Joy Mayweather Jr. for not disclosing $100,000 payment source which they received for unlawful promotionof Centra Tech’s $32 million ICO.
During Jan 2019, Cohen also got the credit of supervising EDGAR hacking case which was filed against nine defendants for their participation in the hacking scheme related to SEC’s EDGAR system who pulled out non-public information for illegal trading.
Besides above, in Nov 2018, Cohen also led the investigation against an ERC20 Token based unregistered trading platform “EtherDelta” and its founder Zachary Coburn.
Role Of SEC’s Cyber Unit
The Cyber Unit is responsible for handling the matters related to digital assets and cryptocurrency, cyber-related trading and violation practices such as hacking and information theft, which the new and old ventures opt in the wake of crime. The unit also focuses on public companies and financial institutions for their cybersecurity disclosures and trial procedures.
The SEC is playing a crucial role and taking every measure to curb the crimes which are multiplying in the cryptocurrency space due to the wrong intents of the bad actors. Therefore, after scrutinising the fillings the legitimate applications are getting approved. Apparently, one such firm recently obtained a green signal from the SEC. Blockstack- a blockchain-powered startup got the approval to issue $28 million token offerings under Regulation A+: an initial public offering (IPO) which was introduced in 2012 by the “Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act.”
On July 25, SEC announced via website about the approval of a blockchain-based gaming token offering. The authorities mentioned that they cannot be considered as a security and issue tokens without registration. The gaming website “Pocketful of Quarters (PoQ)” was co-founded by George B. Weiksner.
Image by Daria Nepriakhina from Pixabay
Tags: Blockchain News, SEC, Government, Law, USA, Blockstack, Cryptocurrencies, Crimes, Robert A. Cohen
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