Tron's native TRX token plummeted today after the SEC cracked down on the founder of the blockchain project with market manipulation, fraud and other charges.
CoinGecko data shows that TRX is down 11.6% over the past 24 hours, trading at $0.059 at the time of writing. Its stock price plummeted quickly after the SEC announced charges against its founder. The SEC on Wednesday accused Tron founder Justin Sun of manipulating the price of TRX, also known as Tronix, through his company, The Tron Foundation.
A number of celebrities including Lindsay Lohan, Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty and Akon were also named in Wednesday's lawsuit. Federal regulators also accused the cryptocurrency entrepreneur of manipulating the price of BitTorrent’s BTT token.
An hour after the news was released, BTT also fell sharply by 2.3%, trading at $0.000000621040. The SEC alleges that the two assets were unregistered securities and that Sun inflated their prices by “elaborating an elaborate scheme to pay celebrities to tout TRX and BTT without disclosing their compensation.”
The SEC's action targets three of Sun's companies: Tron Foundation, BitTorrent, and Rainberry. It also alleges that Sun received a total of $31 million in illicit proceeds from the sale of TRX. Tron is a blockchain network that aims to build a decentralized internet controlled and owned by the individuals who use it.
BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file transfer protocol that allows users to share information over the Internet. The SEC is stepping up its enforcement action against the cryptocurrency world: its chairman, Gary Gensler, wants to crack down on all coins and tokens he deems to be unregistered securities. He also talked about celebrity shilling digital assets. Last month, regulators fined U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Kraken $30 million for allegedly violating securities laws on its collateralized products.
