Crypto platform Abra is the latest to agree to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over accusations of unregistered securities.
The settlement focused on its Abra Earn product, which the agency said had amassed as much as $500 million at one point.

Abra has agreed to a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over accusations the platform, owned by Plutus Lending, inappropriately pushed Abra Earn to customers when the product qualified as a security that should have been registered, the agency said Monday.

Starting in 2020, the crypto investment platform and lender began offering Abra Earn to customers, promising high levels of returns for letting the firm use their assets, the SEC said in its complaint. At one point, the program had about $600 million, and almost $500 million was from U.S. investors. Also, for at least two years, Abra operated as an investment company without registering, the SEC said.

The company, which accepted the sanction without admitting or denying the allegations, consented to a prohibition from violating the U.S. securities-registration rules and whatever civil penalties a court deems appropriate. The company had already similarly settled with 25 states for operating without licenses and agreed to return as much as $82 million to customers in the U.S.

"Abra sold nearly half a billion dollars of securities to U.S. investors without complying with registration laws designed to ensure that investors have sufficient, accurate information to make informed decisions before they invest,” said Stacy Bogert, associate director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a statement. She added that the agency is governed by "economic realities, not cosmetic labels."

In a statement sent after this article was published, an Abra spokesperson said, "no consumers were harmed at all by the settlement or wind down of Abra Earn. All assets for US Earn customers including accrued interest were transferred to their Abra Trade accounts in 2023."

Monday's action is Abra's second SEC settlement, after it agreed to pay $150,000 each to it and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in 2020 to end an investigation into its swaps product.

UPDATE (Aug. 27, 2024, 15:30 UTC): Adds Abra statement.

Regulations Abra Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Court

Jesse Hamilton

Jesse Hamilton is CoinDesk's deputy managing editor on the Global Policy and Regulation team, based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CoinDesk in 2022, he worked for more than a decade covering Wall Street regulation at Bloomberg News and Businessweek, writing about the early whisperings among federal agencies trying to decide what to do about crypto. He’s won several national honors in his reporting career, including from his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and as a police reporter for newspapers. Jesse is a graduate of Western Washington University, where he studied journalism and history. He has no crypto holdings.