ASIC Goes After Ex-Blockchain Global Director Over ACX Exchange Collapse

Allegations of Mismanagement and Misuse of Customer Funds

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission isn't playing around! They've just dropped the hammer on Liang "Allan" Guo, a former director at Blockchain Global, in a fiery civil lawsuit. Why? Alleged breaches of director duties tied to the epic fail of ACX Exchange.

Hold onto your hats, because according to ASIC's May 28 press release, they're accusing Guo of straight-up mismanaging customer funds and slacking on keeping proper records while he was at Blockchain Global. This outfit, now flushed down the drain, used to run ACX Exchange. The battle's heating up in the Federal Court!

ASIC's not holding back, claiming Guo was spinning lies and spreading misleading info about how ACX was handling customer assets. Plus, they say he totally dropped the ball on his director duties by not making sure the company's financial paperwork was up to snuff.

Get this—ACX allegedly went rogue with the funds, and that's what sent the whole platform crashing down in late 2019, leaving users locked out of their assets.

Blockchain Global was running the show at ACX Exchange from 2016 to 2019 until the whole thing imploded. Fast forward to February 2022, they got tossed into liquidation, and the dirty laundry came out in court: customer deposits were tossed into a big crypto asset party, not kept separate like they should've been.

ASIC wasn't messing around; they kicked off their investigation into Blockchain Global in January 2024 after the court's liquidators dropped a bombshell report in November 2023. Turns out, the company was in the hole for over 58 million Aussie dollars to unsecured creditors, with more than 22 million of that from ex-ACX customers!

Guo was slapped with travel restrictions starting February 2024, but guess what? He split from Australia in September once those orders ran out. And ASIC's saying he hasn't shown his face since. They're even mulling over criminal charges against him, pointing fingers at his alleged misuse of company cash for personal splurges like mortgage payments.

ASIC's move on Guo is just the tip of the iceberg—Australia's cranking up the heat on digital asset platforms with tighter oversight.

Just last March, the Treasury department rolled out new licensing demands for these platforms if they're holding onto customer funds, shoving them right under the same strict financial services laws as the big banks.

Under these new rules, exchanges, custodians, and stablecoin issuers will be in the hot seat with a whole laundry list of obligations, from redemption safeguards to transparency on what tokens they're listing.

And don't think it stops there—in April, AUSTRAC, the country's financial watchdogs, threw down the gauntlet, warning that any crypto exchanges sitting idle on their registry better watch out or they'll get deregistered. They're worried these ghost exchanges could be a playground for criminals looking to launder money or pull off scams.