The Commission on securities and exchange Commission (SEC) filed charges against 10 persons, among whom were head of Riot Blockchain John O’rourke (John O’rourke) and once the largest investor Barry Honig (Barry Honig), on suspicion in the organization in 2013-2018 fraudulent schemes in securities by $27 million of Charges also relate to the associated with these individuals companies Alpha Capital Anstalt, ATG Capital, LLC, GRQ Consultants Inc., HS Contrarian Investments LLC, Grander Holdings Inc., Melechdavid Inc., Opko Health Inc., Frost Gamma Investments Trust, Southern Biotech Inc. and Stetson Capital Investments Inc.
In a statement the SEC said that Honig was the main strategist of the group, recommending its members to buy or sell stocks, transactions, and promotional activity etc. at the same time he arranged the purchase of the Issuer’s shares with a significant and unfavorable for the company discount, and then artificially increased their price in the stock market. From implementing schemes of pumping and dumping, according to the SEC, suffered 3 companies and private investors.
We will remind, Riot Blockchain became known as one of the first companies to include in the title the word “blockchain”, which led to a sharp rise in the price of its stock. After the name change from Bioptix Inc on Riot Blockchain stock price from $4.5 rose to a maximum of $38.6. The company then purchased 700 pieces Bitmain AntMiner S9s and 500 pieces AntMiner L3s for the organization of mining business. In addition, Riot Blockchain acquired at the auction held by the US marshals Service, 500 bitcoins, and in March of this year announced that it may launch in the US platform for trading digital currencies and futures.
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