According to PANews news on July 26, according to Blockworks, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused Quantstamp of conducting an unregistered initial coin offering (ICO) of encrypted securities in 2017. Quantstamp raised more than $28 million by selling QSP tokens to roughly 5,000 investors, according to legal filings. The filing adds that the company plans to use the ICO proceeds to develop a protocol on the ethereum blockchain that will provide automated security audits for smart contracts.
The company allegedly led QSP purchasers to expect the value of the tokens to increase with the success of the Quantstamp business. In a press release last week, the SEC said it had taken steps to make the tokens tradable on third-party digital asset exchanges following the ICO. Quantstamp agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying the SEC's findings, paying nearly $2.5 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest in addition to a $1 million civil penalty. The company's automated smart contract security audit platform, built in June 2019, is no longer operational.