The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued an alert, urging investors to use caution in investing on ‘initial exchange offerings’ (IEOs). The notice clarifies several ways IEOs may be in violation with federal securities laws. The practice of IEOs emerged early 2019 as an alternative to ‘initial coin offerings’ (ICOs); IEOs function similarly to ICOs, with the key distinction being that IEOs employ exchanges as intermediaries to facilitate transactions, rather than using smart contracts to sell cryptoassets directly from the business to the investors.