US Judge Rules to Bring Alleged Cryptocurrency Scam Under CFTC Oversight
A U.S. federal district judge has ruled that an allegedly fraudulent crypto token meets the definition of a commodity, bringing the case under regulators’ purview, Finance Feeds reports September 27.
Judge Rya W. Zobel of the Massachusetts District Court ruled Sept. 25 against a motion to dismiss a case that had been launched by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against an allegedly fraudulent crypto scheme known as “My Big Coin Pay Inc.,” reported to have been based in the state of Nevada.
The CFTC had sued tech entrepreneur Randall Crater, and other relief defendants tied to his firm, for allegedly violating the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) by manipulating investors to buy My Big Coin (MBC) via a series of misleading or false statements. A total of 28 investors are purported to have been defrauded of a collective $6 million, having been led to believe that MBC was “backed by gold” and was being “actively traded” on various crypto exchanges.
The defendants are further alleged to have “arbitrarily” manipulated the value of MBC to dissimulate the price fluctuations of a legitimate cryptocurrency, despite investors purportedly themselves being unable to withdraw funds or trade their MBC token holdings.
Readmore: https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-judge-rules-to-bring-alleged-cryptocurrency-scam-under-cftc-oversight