Block.one has announced Friday that it will pays $27.5 million to the Crypto Assets Opportunity Fund (CAOF) to close the lawsuit.
“Block.one believes this lawsuit was without merit and filled with numerous inaccuracies. However, accepting this settlement allows us to focus more time and energy on running our business and delivering new products,” the company said.
Brendan Blumer, CEO of Block.one
In May 2020, The Crypto Assets Opportunity Fund (CAOF) launched a class-action lawsuit in a U.S. court against Block.one, CEO Brendan Blumer, CTO Dan Larimer, former Chief Strategy Officer Brock Pierce and former partner Ian Grigg, of trying to “capitalize on the investor fervor for cryptocurrencies” in 2017 to host an illegal securities sale, arguing the “fraudulent scheme” failed to deliver on its primary promise of decentralization.
The CAOF argues defendants purposefully misled investors and artificially inflated the EOS token price during the yearlong initial coin offering (ICO), which raised a total of $4.1 billion between June 2017 and June 2018.
In September 2019, Block.one agreed to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges related to the $4 billion unregistered ICO for a $24 million penalty. The settlement did not require a restitution offer, registration of tokens, or any disqualifications.
On Jan 10, CTO Dan Larimer left Block.one, he said: “Alas, all good things must come to an end. I will continue on my mission to create free market, voluntary solutions for securing life, liberty, property, and justice for all. I do not know exactly what is next, but I am leaning toward building more censorship resistant technologies.”
But, responses from the EOS community on Reddit and Twitter were mixed. One such post read, “Dan peaces out with millions from his 3rd flop/scam. How many times [are] people going to buy this guy’s shitcoins?”
Read more:
- [Breaking News] Daniel Larimer Has Resigned As CTO Of Block.One
- Dan Larimer Is Resigning From His Post As The CTO Of The Development Company Block.One, EOS Price Down 22% For The Day