Here’s some bad news for people who were really looking forward to throwing a bunch of money away: the Bitcoin knockoff endorsed by Steven Seagal has received a cease-and-desist order from New Jersey’s Bureau Of Securities for “fraudulently offering unregistered securities in violation of the Securities Law.” Seagal’s cryptocurrency is known as “Bitcoiin,” which really should’ve been the second red flag after finding out that Seagal was involved, and Vice’s Motherboard is reporting that the New Jersey government believes Bitcoiin is totally lying in its claims about being a new kind of futuristic currency that is somehow safe from whatever invisible magic causes other cryptocurrency prices to fluctuate.
The New Jersey regulators also take issue with Seagal’s involvement, saying it’s unclear what expertise he has, if any, that will help Bitcoiin operate “in compliance with federal and state securities laws.” This whole thing is a bit complicated, as all stories about cryptocurrencies are, but the basic point is that Bitcoiin can’t sell its digital whatevers in New Jersey because the whole operation seems really shady.
Seagal hasn’t addressed this issue on his Twitter account, but he did post this earlier in the month and it kind of sums up the whole situation: