2 mins read The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is investigating the business behind Qoin over potentially misleading statements.
This is the latest move by the country’s authorities to keep consumers safe from misleading projects, which they believe Qoin may be.
In essence, 79,000 consumers may have been misled by the business to believe that the digital asset was compliant with financial services laws. ASIC believes this is not the case.
Qoin is operated by BPS Financial, a company launched back in 2020 and co-founded by Raj Pathak and Toy Weise. The website has made several claims, including that Qoin can be used at 38,000 merchants.
The website also states that Qoin’s value has been increasing steadily. However, ASIC’s investigation and subsequent reporting showed that Qoin was subjected to restrictive controls and limits.
Those were put on people who were trying to swap their Qoin back into Australian dollars, investigators said.
BPS has, as a result, made “misleading and deceptive representations” when assuring consumers that they would be able to trade their digital assets back into Australian dollars through independent exchanges, which was clearly not the case, the watchdog added.
ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court said: “We allege that, despite what BPS represented in its marketing, Qoin merchant numbers have been declining, and that there have been periods of time where it was not possible to exchange Qoin tokens through independent exchanges.”
While coaching its language carefully, and still only alleging the transgression, the ASIC is determined to press on with its investigation.
Qoin has given no official statement to the accusations just yet. Australia has been keen to target all and any cryptocurrency crime, as demonstrated by recent changes in law enforcement.
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