The British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned the public about First BTC FX, a supposed clone firm offering fraudulent crypto investments. Using details of an FCA-authorized firm According to an FCA warning published on Sept. 20, First BTC FX is posing as authorized firm First Global Limited. First Global is a trade name for nonprofit organization International First Committee Association. First BTC FX also claims to represent a trade name of First Global on its website firstbtcfx.com. Clone firms posing as legal entities The scam entity claims to provide premium-quality trading services for commodities, forex, indices, shares and cryptocurrencies. …

The digital assets-focused blockchain-based protocol, Aventus, revealed its next code release Aventus Classic designed to create a more equitable and transparent ticketing industry. Alleviate fraud and provide transparency On Sept 12, Aventus Network announced in a blog post the release of Aventus Classic, a fully decentralized open-source Ethereum-based ticketing protocol designed to stop fraud and provide more transparency to the event ticketing industry. The announcement goes on to say: “This release marks our first real step in engaging with the open-source community, as Aventus Classic will now be open to contributions from anyone and will no longer be solely developed …

Four out of the first five results presented when querying Google for a “bitcoin qr generator” lead to scam websites. The findings Cryptocurrency wallet ZenGo wrote the findings in a blog post published on Aug. 29. Reportedly, when researching prior to implementing QR Code support in their wallet, ZenGo learned of the prevalence of scam QR Code generators. The company explains how the alleged scam works: “These sites generate a QR code that encodes an address controlled by the scammers, instead of the one requested by the user, thus directing all payments for this QR code to the scammers.” QR …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a primary governmental regulator, has settled charges with digital assets company Bitqyck Inc. and its founders. Smart contracts and crypto mining? The SEC announced the development in a press release on Aug. 29. According to the announcement, Bruce Bise and Sam Mendez­ are the founders of Bitqyck — a company that provided security offerings for digital assets Bitqy and BitqyM in Dallas, Texas. The company claimed that Bitqy tokens gave investors fractional shares of company stock via a smart contract. Additionally, Bitqyck said that BitqyM tokens would give holders interest in a …

New Zealand radio personality Duncan Garner, who hosts The AM Show on MagicTalkRadio, has denied promoting Bitcoin (BTC) on Facebook. I don’t do any of that ‘Coin’ Local news daily NewsHub provided a video of Garner denying his involvement in the Facebook promotions on Aug. 26. Following an interview about a recent privacy breach in the government of New Zealand, Garner said: “That is not me on Facebook pumping up Bitcoin [...] I don’t do Bitcoin, I don’t do any of that ‘coin,’ I haven’t been on Facebook for a couple of years. It’s not me. But people say, ‘Hey, …

Over the last 24 months, all major legal systems have been floundering to develop a regulatory framework that can be applied across the blockchain industry. This lack of a standard foundation has led to the world watching current court cases within the crypto industry with extreme scrutiny, as these will likely provide a precedence to build future regulatory decisions upon. Cointelegraph has covered many of these cases, with the most (in)famous one being the lawsuit against self-proclaimed Bitcoin creator Craig Wright. But what do all these cases suggest in regard to the overall sentiment toward crypto within the United States …

Thailand’s securities regulator has warned the public about scam entities posing as legal digital currency trading firms operating overseas. Investor losses are not known The Thai Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has discovered a new crypto scam where investors are lured into operating with companies outside the country, local English-language news outlet Bangkok Post reported on Aug. 25. The regulator has become aware of several fraudulent companies involved in the case, including an alleged scam operating under the name FX Trading Corporation, which is not authorized to trade in digital currencies. The Thai SEC stated that the amount of losses …

The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has settled charges it filed in 2018 against an alleged crypto pyramid scheme involving four individuals. Banned from multi-level marketing According to an official statement on Aug. 22, the regulator permanently banned the defendants from multi-level marketing and misrepresenting investment opportunities — and charged a total of more than $500,000 as part of the settlement. In March 2018, the FTC first obtained a court order against Thomas Dluca, Eric Pinkston, Louis Gatto and Scott Chandler that stopped their misleading marketing practices and froze their assets. At the time, the commission alleged that the …

Australian citizen Katherine Nguyen has pleaded guilty to stealing $450,000 in XRP — over 100,000 tokens — in January 2018. Local news channel 7News Sydney reported the latest about the case on Aug. 23. According to the report, Nguyen hacked into the email account of a man with the same last name. She then proceeded to steal all of his XRP, before unlocking his account two days later. Police reportedly investigated the theft for 10 months before locating and arresting her. Nguyen has since pleaded guilty to the theft, for which she will reportedly face jail time. A special hearing …

Two Canadians of Indian origin were charged in the United States with a $233,220 Bitcoin (BTC) fraud using a fake HitBTC account on Twitter. Scammers posed as HitBTC customer service on Twitter Karanjit Singh Khatkar, 23, and Jagroop Singh Khatkar, 24, of Surrey, British Columbia, allegedly stole 23.2 Bitcoin from a woman in the U.S. state of Oregon, Indian publication The Week reports on Aug. 23, citing charges filed with the federal court. According to the report, the defendants used a fraudulent Twitter account named @HitBTCAssist to trick victims into believing they represented customer service from Hong Kong-based crypto exchange …

Saudi Arabia’s Finance Ministry has warned against crypto tricksters using the kingdom’s official emblem to promote tokens that purport to be tied to government projects. Arab News reported on Aug. 21 that the ministry has identified a Singapore-based company promoting two fraudulent cryptocurrencies, dubbed “CryptoRiyal” and “SmartRiyal." Fraud alert: hype and pump CryptoRiyal and SmartRiyal’s promoters are reportedly claiming that their cryptocurrency project’s ultimate goal is to finance NEOM — a smart city and tourism hub currently under construction in the north of Saudi Arabia. The report cites an official statement issued yesterday from the ministry, which indicated that any …

Bitfinex and Tether have replied to Judge Joel Cohen’s recent ruling in the New York Attorney General (NYAG) ongoing case against companies. Cohen dismissed Bitfinex’s motion to throw out the case due to lack of jurisdiction, so the NYAG will continue to prosecute the companies via the Martin Act. Bitfinex issued its reply in an official blog post on Aug. 20. Tether published the same response on its website, also on Aug. 20. The companies maintain that the NYAG’s claims are meritless and say they will pursue the issues at hand in appeals court. NYAG’s allegations Back in April, the …