Key takeaways:
- For falsely pretending to have a local credit license, Australian-based cryptocurrency lender Helio Lending was given a one-year good behavior bond.
- ASIC claimed that the fact that Helio entered a guilty plea was considered when determining its sentence.
For falsely pretending to have a local credit license, Australian-based cryptocurrency lender Helio Lending was given a one-year good behavior bond with no chance of prosecution.
Helio was given a good-behavior bond for a year, with a break fee of $9,600 (or AUD 15,000), according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which announced the sentencing on August 17.
Bonds for good behavior are frequently issued for offenses with lesser consequences. If Helios is released on a non-conviction good behavior bond, it will only be found guilty and required to pay the $9,600 in fines if it violates the terms of the bond.
In an August 2019 news post that was published on its website, Helio allegedly misrepresented that it possessed an Australian credit license.
ASIC claimed that the fact that Helio entered a guilty plea was taken into consideration when determining its sentence. It was also cleared of a charge related to falsely representing its license status on its website.
In addition to providing cryptocurrency-backed loans, Cyios Corporation, an American public holding company with a focus on cryptocurrencies, also controls the upcoming nonfungible token (NFT) platform Randombly through its Australian subsidiary, Helio.
In April 2022, ASIC brought a case against Helio. According to Helio, the license was obtained by purchasing Cash Flow Investments and the license it possessed, according to a circulating investor report from late 2018. The most recent victory by ASIC comes after previous lawsuits it has filed recently regarding cryptocurrencies.
Earlier in August, the regulator filed a lawsuit against the trading platform eToro on the grounds that it had not conducted adequate screening procedures before making leveraged derivative contracts available to ordinary investors. According to ASIC, nearly 20,000 of eToro’s clients lost money trading CFDs between October 2021 and June 2023.
