In January the US Securities and Exchange Commission shut down AriseBank, an allegedly fraudulent initial coin offering endorsed by boxing legend Evander Holyfield. The two former executives behind it have now been ordered in federal court to pay nearly $2.7 million.

The court has also prohibited ex-CEO Jared Rice Sr and ex-COO Stanley Ford from serving as officers or directors of public companies or participating in future offerings of digital securities. In January they were accused of offering and selling unregistered investments in their purported AriseCoin crypto-currency by falsely depicting AriseBank as a first-of-its-kind decentralised bank offering a variety of services to the HNW investor.

To settle the SEC’s charges, Rice and Ford agreed to be held jointly and severally liable for $2,259,543 in disgorgement plus $68,423 in prejudgment interest, with each having to pay a $184,767 penalty, but all without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint.

One allegation is that AriseBank announced in a press release that it had purchased a 100-year-old commercial bank, a purchase that the SEC says was not registered in the records of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, even though the press release said that AriseBank "can now offer its customers FDIC-insured accounts and transactions." It also allegedly made false claims about its association with a payments processing platform.