Bitcoin Daily: Investors Reimbursed For $2M Hacker Losses By IOTA Exec; Australia To Focus On Crypto Holders For Audits; France Wants Testing Ground For EU Security Tokens; ICOBox Fined $16M For Selling Unlicensed Securities

The founder of IOTA is repaying victims of a wallet hack earlier this year to “preserve” the runway of his endeavor, CoinDesk reported.

David Sonstebo, the distributed network’s founder, reportedly will use his own IOTA holdings to pay back those impacted by the incident. The founder had publicized that he would repay victims himself after a period of internal debate.

He said per the outlet, “It’s just preemptive step in the worst-case scenario of something drastic happening overnight.”

The foundation had to halt the IOTA network last month following the hack.

Meanwhile, as the tax authority in Australia puts digital currency traders in its sights, many people in the country will get a warning in the following weeks from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), news.com.au reported.

Digital currencies, for their part, are seen as a property type and an asset when it comes to capital gains tax. The ATO is reaching out to people through email or letter to tell people about their taxation responsibility when exchanging digital currency like bitcoin.

In other news, the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) is mulling a regulatory sandbox for security tokens, Cointelegraph reported.

Earlier this month, the French regulator said that it put forward the idea for a European “Digital Lab” regulatory sandbox letting local regulators put aside requirements that have to do with security settlements. The endeavor is designed to look into security token offerings as well as the wider idea of financial monetary contracts based on blockchain.

And, a federal court has decreed that ICOBox pay a $16 million fine for going against securities law in the United States, CoinDesk reported.

A U.S. District Court for the Central District of California judge approved the default judgement motion of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the platform as well as an individual who is its CEO and founder. (That person will reportedly have to pay a fine exceeding $192,000.) The SEC originally moved to charge the platform in September of last year with the claim that the firm had a securities sale that was not registered.