SEC drops its probe into Hiro's Stacks Blockchain, according to a regulatory filing

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has dropped its probe into Hiro Systems PBC, according to a regulatory filing posted on Friday. 

The agency's investigation involved Hiro's Stacks Blockchain. Stacks is a blockchain designed to scale bitcoin. 

"On July 9, 2024, Hiro Systems PBC ('Hiro') was informed by the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the 'SEC') that the staff concluded its investigation as to the Stacks Blockchain and that based on the information known to the staff as of that date, the staff does not intend to recommend an enforcement action by the SEC against Hiro," according to a Form 1-U filing. Companies use that form to report material changes.

Also this week, the SEC dropped its investigation against Paxos following a probe into stablecoin Binance USD. Paxos said it received a "formal termination notice" on July 9, which said the SEC would not recommend enforcement against the firm in the investigation of BUSD.

Hiro, which used to be called Blockstack, worked with the SEC to conduct a $50 million token offering under the SEC's Regulation A+ framework in 2019. Regulation A gives an exemption from registration for small issues and was amended. Regulation A+ is an amendment to the regulation made in 2015 to increase the offering amount to $50 million a year.

Blockstack was founded by Ryan Shea and Muneeb Ali in 2013 while they were students at Princeton University. In 2017, Blockstack raised a $52 million round through a token sale on CoinList.