Blockchain skeptics and critics often deride cryptocurrency as a whole as one big pyramid scheme. And though that point might have some room for debate, the Securities and Exchange Commission is officially adding at least one more crypto venture to the ever-growing list of “definitely a scam” operations.
The SEC announced charges against four people in connection with a fraudulent crypto-themed Ponzi scheme called “Trade Coin Club,” on Friday. Douver Torres Braga, Joff Paradise, Keleionalani Akana Taylor, and Jonathan Tetreault are facing civil fines, along with other penalties, in Seattle’s U.S. District Court.
Trade Coin Club, which was founded by Braga, ran from 2016 to 2018 as a multi-level marketing program. And in that time, filings show the scheme defrauded more than 100,000 people out of 82,000 bitcoin—then, worth about $295 million, according to the SEC complaint.
Braga and his crew of promoters allegedly lured investors in with claims that their money would be managed by a finance bot that made “millions of microtransactions” per second. And thanks to the magical (read: nonexistent) bot, those same marks were told that they would receive a minimum of 0.35% return on their investment every day, the Commission said. But instead of putting the funds raised into a crypto investment account run by a lightning-fast trading AI, the SEC claims that Braga and co. pocketed it instead.
Further, in classic Ponzi style, the money that a subset of investors were…
