Five firms “appear to be involved in schemes that target Ontario investors and encourage them to trade or invest in cryptocurrencies,” the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) warned on Friday.
None of the firms named by the OSC — BTCReal, BitSerial, Hypercube Ventures LP, CabinCoin OÜ, and BaapPay Inc. — are registered to trade, or provide advice, trading securities, the regulator says in a news release.
Any distribution to investors in Ontario requires either a prospectus, or and exemption from the prospectus requirements, “which Bitserial, Hypercube, CabinCoin and BaapPay do not have,” the OSC says.
The OSC’s warnings comes on the heels of a general warning about trading cryptocurrencies issued on Thursday form the British Columbia Securities Commission.