FINRA Says 70% of All Crypto Communications Contain Regulatory Violations

A US regulatory organization says that 70% of all crypto communications potentially contain violations of current regulations.

In a new press release, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which creates and enforces rules for registered brokers and brokerage firms, says that they found violations in up to 70% of crypto communications after conducting an investigation.

According to FINRA, it was looking for violations of its Rule 2210, which prohibits “claims that are false, exaggerated, promissory, unwarranted or misleading.” After examining 500 retail communications, the organization found that the majority of them violated the rule.

As stated by Ira Gluck, Senior Director of FINRA, in the FINRA Unscripted podcast,

“Our analysts were asked to focus on substantive violations of applicable rules as opposed to technical violations. So, these included looking for false, misleading or promissory statements, such as did the communications falsely imply that crypto assets were offered through the broker-dealer?

Did communications misrepresent the extent to which the federal securities laws or SIPC applied, and did the communications exaggerate or misrepresent features of the investment? We also asked our analysts to look for adequate risk disclosure or balancing language.

And we really wanted just to ensure that communications included the applicable risks associated with crypto assets, specifically risks associated with the manner in which crypto assets are issued, sold, held or transferred.

Finally, we also asked analysts to review firms’ written supervisory procedures, controls and training regarding crypto asset communications to ensure that they are supervising this business appropriately.”

Gluck said that before the probe, he expected high noncompliance rates, which were confirmed by the results.

“Well, given our experience prior to the sweep, we did expect a relatively high rate of noncompliance. And unfortunately, what we found was [that] almost 70% of the communications we reviewed did not comply with FINRA Rule 2210 in some substantive manner.”

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