The influencer then earmarked SPRK as the top ICO for that year on his spreadsheet.Īccording to the SEC, Balina failed to comply with federal securities laws by not disclosing that he received funds from a securities issuer with the associated amount. Subsequent negotiations resulted in Balina signing a contract to purchase $5,000,000 in SPRK which included a 30% SPRK bonus. Getting Ian is gonna be easy.”įollowing Sparkster’s winning of a contest hosted by Balina, Balina asked Sparkster to grant him a larger allocation of SPRK than was allowed by other investors in the region of $3,500,000. Because it came up high on his spreadsheet.
“Ian Belina took an ICO from 12 million tokens sold to 36 million sold in 1 day. An internal Sparkster chat revealed the CEO’s intention.
Sparkster tapped Balina to promote the ICO early on. The application would run on a type of decentralized cloud.
SKRUMBLE NETWORK ICO IAN BALINA SOFTWARE
The company’s whitepaper stated that the funds raised would fund a “no-code” software programming application, an MIT-inspired initiative designed to teach coding to children. The issuer offers the new crypto assets in exchange for bitcoin, ether, or fiat currency and often relies on the promotional efforts of prominent social media influencers.Īccording to the SEC, Sparkster’s Initial Coin Offering occurred in 2018 on the Ethereum blockchain. The spreadsheet dubbed the “ICO spreadsheet” contained a list of what Balina deemed were the most lucrative Initial Coin Offerings of a particular year.Īn initial coin offering is the cryptocurrency analog of an initial public offering and is used to raise funds for the issuer of a new cryptocurrency. This initiative morphed into Token Metrics, a crypto investment research company, over which he currently serves as chief executive.
SKRUMBLE NETWORK ICO IAN BALINA REGISTRATION
He also allegedly failed to file a registration statement with the SEC for selling the SPRK tokens to members of an investment pool.īalina, a 33-year-old Ugandan with American citizenship, rose to fame after publicizing a spreadsheet in 2017 with information on all his investments that were reportedly accessed by over one million investors monthly. Balina had failed to disclose the 30% bonus to the SEC, according to the agency.
Furthermore, the SEC alleges that Balina signed a contract binding him to invest $5 million in Sparkster’s Initial Coin Offering in return for a 30% bonus and to promote the asset on social media. Securities and Exchange Commission charges Token Metrics CEO Ian Balina with offering unregistered securities in 2018.Īccording to the SEC complaint, Balina promoted SPRK tokens while failing to disclose compensations he received from the issuer of the crypto asset, Sparkster Ltd.
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