TBIS Hack

Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services is a project whose CEO was engaged in securities fraud, the investigation of which was handled by the SEC.

TBIS CEO has pleaded guilty to cryptocurrency fraud in the Central District of California related to the ICO of the project, which raised approximately $21M. He admitted that in order to attract investors, he falsified some aspects of official TBIS documents. He also posted fake customer reviews on the TBIS website and falsely claimed that he had business relationships with well-known companies in order to create a false appearance of legality. Like most blockchain projects, TBIS outlined its plans in a whitepaper, promising that its BAR token would be useful for accessing a platform offering real services. TBIS stated that there was a major hack of BAR, and issued a second coin, TBAR, to replace it. However, the original BAR coin continued to be traded on exchanges.

Titanium was one of several ICO projects that attracted fraud allegations around 2017 and 2018 during a surge in coin-based fundraising, and the SEC even created its own fake website to warn buyers about the fraud. Today, most of the alleged fraud is related to projects of non-interchangeable tokens or NFT, but the legal system is still catching up with ICOs. Stollery is due to be sentenced in November 2022, where the fraud charge carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.