Crowd Machine Crypto Creators Must Pay SEC $21 Million for Fraud

Four companies and their founder must pay nearly $21 million in disgorgement and civil penalties, a federal court ruled in an SEC suit alleging a $33 million cryptocurrency fraud.

The defendants will also have to pay prejudgment interest in an amount still to be determined, Judge Haywood S. Gilliam Jr. said Tuesday for the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

• Craig Sproule and his companies represented that the unregistered initial coin offering proceeds would be used to fund the development of a “peer-to-peer network, or ‘Crowd Computer,’” the Securities and Exchange Commission alleges
• Legitimate business expenses should ...