The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed criminal charges against decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Rari Capital and its co-founders Jai Bhavnani, Jack Lipstone, and David Lucid for misleading investors and acting as unregistered intermediaries.
The charges stem from Rari Capital’s operation of two blockchain-based investment platforms that collectively held over $1 billion in crypto assets at their peak.
Rari Capital has an altcoin with the RGT ticker.
According to the SEC’s criminal complaint, Rari Capital offered two investment products, Earn pools and Fuse pools, that allowed investors to invest their crypto assets and earn returns. Investors were given tokens representing their stake in the pools and the right to earn profits. However, the SEC alleges that Rari Capital conducted unregistered securities offerings through these pools in violation of federal securities laws. Additionally, Rari Capital’s co-founders falsely claimed that Earn pools would automatically rebalance assets for optimal returns, when manual intervention would typically be required.
The SEC also accused Rari Capital Infrastructure LLC, which took over operations of the Fuse platform in 2022, of conducting unregistered securities offerings and unregistered broker-dealer activities.
*This is not investment advice.