cryptocurrency
Bulletins

BlockFi will pay $100 million penalty in SEC crackdown on crypto lending

Gary Gensler has made his first big move in crypto regulation.

Crypto coins in a net

BlockFi will pay a $100 million settlement to the SEC and 32 states.

Illustration: Christopher T. Fong/Protocol

BlockFi will pay a $100 million penalty for offering and selling a crypto lending product that the SEC says is illegal.

BlockFi failed to register its BlockFi Interest Accounts lending offering and violated “ the registration provisions of Investment Company Act of 1940,” the SEC said.

The company agreed to pay a $50 million settlement to the SEC and another $50 million in fines to 32 states. BlockFi did not admit or deny the SEC’s findings.

BlockFi executives led by CEO Zac Prince said in a statement that the settlement represented “a path forward to regularity clarity." The company has 60 days to bring its crypto lending products into compliance with existing laws, the SEC said.
Benjamin Pimentel

Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers crypto and fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Google Voice at (925) 307-9342.

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