Gladius shuts down Months after its ICO SEC settlement

In a recent telegram message issued by Gladius, the startup company is announcing its shut down, nine months after settling its ICO legal issues with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In February this year, the SEC charged Gladius for selling a security that was not registered with the U.S. SEC. The company issued an initial coin offering back in 2017 and raised funds of $12.7 million from the ICO sale. However, the SEC charged the firm for not registering the security with the commission. Gladius had to refund investors, while no further charges will be made against them. SEC decided not to impose any more penalties because it confirmed that the company self-reported the token sale.

As part of the settlement with SEC, the Wall Street Journal said Gladius was supposed to file a statement for registration of the token by May 20th this year. The firm was given a deadline of November 18 to comply with the registration. However, the company has been having funding issues, and it’s not quite clear if the company filed the statement for registration.

But a spokesman of Gladius said the company has no funds to continue with the registration and operation. He reported that the Gladius Network would cease to operate because of unavailable funds. Gladius intends to keep its code for about three months to allow anyone interested in the project to carry on with their version.

It said that the company still thinks its technology is a strong one. It urged anyone interested in pursuing a similar project to contact them. Gladius believe that funding was the main problem that hindered their progress in the project, adding that its technology is still top class. The company will welcome anyone with funds that want to carry on with the same project.

In October 2017, Gladius sold its GLA tokens and exchanged them for Ether. It then went on a sensitization mission to let the crypto community know about its new network. By December 2017, the company had already completed its pre-sell of the ICO. It raised about 24,000 Ethereum at the end.  However, SEC revealed that the firm did not register the security with the commission. As a result, it has to return the funds to the investors.

Gladius setup a decentralized peer-to-peer system that offer spare storage space and bandwidth to users who want to secure their system against cyberattacks. The company believes their technology will still be vital in the cyberworld where attacks are happening on a regular basis. That is why it is still putting up the technology to partner with anyone that will be interested in similar projects. The firm has closed business, citing lack of funds to pursue its project.

SEC clamping down on irregular ICO regulations

The SEC is leaving nothing to chance as it tries to sanitize the crypto space. Gladius is not the only company that has been on the wrong end of the commission in recent times. In November last year, the commission charged two other cryptocurrency startups, Paragon Coin Inc and Airfox, for violating the ICO registration requirements. After settling their charges, both firms agreed to register the securities.

Author: Ali Raza for Crypto-Rating.com