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The SEC announced a trading suspension on American Security Resources (ARSC)on August 24th.

Technically it's not even called American Security Resources anymore as they recently changed their name to Bitcoin Crypto Currency Exchange Corporation.

Savvy investors should have known something was up the second they read the name of the company separating "crypto" and "currency" in the word "cryptocurrency".

Very rarely do you see the two words split up like that when it's being talked about by people within the industry.

Either way, that must have been a red flag for the SEC as well because they halted trading in the stock just a few weeks after the name change.

Specifically this was the release from the SEC regarding the suspension:

"The Commission temporarily suspended trading in the securities of ARSC because of questions that have arisen regarding the publicly available information about the company in press releases on OTCMarkets.com dated August 1st and August 8th, 2017 concerning, among other things, the company's business transition to the cryptocurrency markets and early adoption of blockchain technology."

Basically, it sounds like good ol ARSC was trying to take advantage of the recent popularity surrounding Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general and was looking to ride the wave.

The SEC didn't like that idea very much.

This suspension of trading marks the 3rd Bitcoin related penny stock suspension within the last month.

The first penny stock to be suspended was CIAO Group.

Next was First Bitcoin Capital.

I wrote about them a few days back, more about it can be read here:

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@jrcornel/sec-suspends-trading-in-bitcoin-penny-stock

First Bitcoin Capital recently announced that they will push back against the SEC to have their suspension lifted.

They can announce it all they want, however, in all my years of following the OTC markets, I have never seen the SEC reverse a suspension and subsequent delisting of a security.

They don't suspend trading unless they have concrete evidence of wrong doing.

My thoughts:

My advice to anyone out there that is currently holding any OTC equities related to Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency is to sell them immediately before the SEC pays your stock a visit...

If they haven't suspended it yet, that doesn't mean your stock is out of the woods yet, infact it likely just means they haven't gotten to it yet.

Besides, it's likely better to own the real thing.

Either that or just wait for futures and options markets to come out later this year. Also, I would imagine an ETF is soon to follow as well.

Stay informed my friends.

Sources:

https://www.coindesk.com/third-in-a-month-sec-moves-to-halt-otc-trading-for-bitcoin-firm/

Image Sources:

https://iowaworkcomplaw.com/tag/fraud/

Follow me: @jrcornel