The SEC has charged the Long Blockchain Iced Tea Company with insider trading after the beverage company changed its name to capitalize on the BTC hype, as we can see more in its latest crypto news.

The SEC accused the men of Long Blockchain Iced Tea Company of insider trading after the company was renamed in 2017. The Long Island Iced Tea Company changed its name to capitalize on the BTC hype, but the SEC claimed it was part of a scam. The US Securities and Exchange Commission continued to take enforcement action against the company, which was originally a beverage company. Today the agency announced that it has charged three people with insider trading in connection with the company’s popular rebranding. In December 2017, BTC’s price soared and the press raved about the potential of blockchain technology. The company later announced a name change to Long Blockchain Corp and its shares rose 500%, but the company struggled when BTC crashed in early 2018.

The SEC confirms what many suspected, claiming the renaming was part of an insider trading system. The SEC has indicted Eric Watson as an unnamed controller at Long Blockchain, who led the whole thing together with his brokers Oliver Barret and Gannon Giguiere. According to the SEC, Watson Barret early shared a draft press release of the rebranding announcement that disclosed information about Giguiere. The SEC claims Giguiere bought 35,000 shares in the company and then sold them within two hours of the announcement for a profit of more than $ 160,000.

The agency is now calling for permanent injunctions and civil sanctions on the defendants, as well as the ban on Watson from becoming an officer and director. The agency had previously charged Barret and Giguiere with a separate stock manipulation program, and it is still under litigation. Long blockchain founder Philip Thomas, who was CEO when it was renamed in 2017, has not been charged by the SEC. SEC wrote:

“In December 2017, the company changed its name to LBCC and announced that it was moving its business from beverage production to activities related to blockchain technology. His blockchain business never went live. “

Blockchain has long been a symbol of the absurdity surrounding BTC’s early rise to mainstream along with the wild west nature of the crypto industry at the time. That year, however, the Nasdaq-traded Chinese iced tea company Urban Tea announced that it had turned to blockchain technology and mining of cryptocurrencies.

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