These ICO Investors Are Getting Their Money Back

In what seems like the latest sign concerns are impacting initial coin offerings broadly, Seattle-based Dragonchain is forcing one of its affiliate projects, Norwegian startup Iagon, to return funds it raised from investors back in April - and it's currently unclear why.

"It is my understanding that Dragonchain is continuing to tread cautiously as the SEC has been investigating all ICO and blockchain projects that arise."

The Iagon token sale was part of a program Dragonchain created after raising $13.7 million in its own ICO in November.

Based on posts in another Telegram channel, investors in the Look Lateral token presale, which ran on Dragonchain late last year, have been asking for refunds, primarily because the team has not launched its scheduled sale.

For some, the question could be: why did it take so long for Dragonchain to act on rumors the SEC and other regulators were investigating the space?

Dragonchain continued on with the Iagon partnership, whereby the Iagon token would be limited to holders of Dragonchain's "Dragon" tokens.

According to Dhaliwal, Iagon had wanted to collaborate with Dragonchain since the company has a much higher-profile and deeper community than the Norwegian startup.

Not much is known about the specific reasons why Dragonchain's new legal counsel is uneasy with the sale, and Dhaliwal would not confirm whether or not unaccredited investors in the U.S. were excluded.

Dragonchain seems to be interested in the later, writing in a community update, "It should be noted that until a regulatory framework for utility tokens is defined, 'compliance' seems to be a moving target to which we will always strive to fulfil our due diligence to not only position ourselves as the business blockchain solution but more importantly, to protect all dragon holders - always."

"Dragonchain is a proud U.S.-based blockchain company and in the spirit of the American Dream, we seek to provide blockchain capabilities to all humans."