Digital Currency Group, former Genesis CEO to pay $38.5 million over SEC charges

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(Reuters) -The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday said Digital Currency Group Inc. and the CEO of its now-defunct subsidiary Genesis Global Capital LLC have agreed to pay a combined $38.5 million in civil penalties to settle charges they misled investors about Genesis’s financial condition.

Regulators found that DCG and Genesis chief Soichoro Moro downplayed the impact of a mid-2022 default by one of its largest borrowers, Three Arrow Capital, the SEC said in a statement. 

The SEC said Moro made false or misleading statements on Twitter, now known as X, by characterizing Genesis’s balance sheet as strong. Other executives retweeted some of those statements.

Neither the firm nor Moro admitted or denied the SEC’s findings. 

Moro’s lawyer said in a statement, the executive is pleased to put the matter behind him.

“Mr. Moro helped guide Genesis through a period of extreme market volatility and, working with the DCG and Genesis teams, sought to provide truthful and accurate updates about the company along the way,” his lawyer Marcus Asner said in the statement.

“Genesis met all withdrawal requests and continued to do so for many months after Mr. Moro left Genesis in August 2022.”

A DCG spokesperson said in a statement that the firm is pleased to have concluded the matter, which was limited in its findings to social media posts by a former executive of the Genesis subsidiary. 

“DCG has always strived to conduct its business with the highest integrity, and we believe our actions related to Genesis were consistent with that approach,” the spokesperson said.

(Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Louise Heavens and Diane Craft)