The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) has issued a cease and desist order against CopyCash Foundation, which was planning to launch an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) on 10 January 2018 in Malaysia.

The CopyCash Foundation is an organization registered in Singapore. It describes itself as a blockchain-based social travestying platform.

“CopyCash is the first decentralized and transparent social travesting platform in the world, based on the Ethereum blockchain with CopyCashCoin (CCC) as a standard Ethereum ERC20 token used as either a subscription or a commission token,” the CopyCash whitepaper reads. “CCC – Copycash’s internal token – is used as a privilege to pay commissions for profits generated by copytrading.”

The SC said that the directive was issued following an inquiry in which it found that there is a possibility that disclosures in CopyCash Foundation’s white paper and representations to potential investors will contravene relevant requirements under securities laws.

“This directive covers all activities as described in or incidental to CopyCash Foundation’s white paper pursuant to the ICO, including any roadshows, seminars or promotional events related to the scheme,” the SC said.

In September 2017, the SC issued a warning against ICOs and related investment schemes. It urged investors to also fully understand the features of an ICO scheme, and carefully weigh the risks before parting with their monies.