June 21, 2021, 2:29PM EDT
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1 min read
A new report from Elliptic shows that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) leads U.S. regulators in monetary penalties against crypto firms by a wide margin.
Since bitcoin's creation in 2009, regulators have levied $2.5 billion in enforcement actions against various crypto projects. Most of that comes from unregistered securities offerings, according to Elliptic's research.
Of the $2.5 billion, $1.69 billion came from actions brought by the SEC. Most of the SEC's total, $1.38 billion of it, resulted from unregistered securities offerings.
The first major action from the SEC came in 2014 when the agency ordered Bitcoin Savings and Trust to pay more than $40 million in penalties related the Ponzi scheme.