On December 3, 2021, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered judgments against Glenn Arcaro and his company, Future Money Ltd., for the promotion of the BitConnect "lending program." Arcaro previously pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud before the United States District Court for the Southern District of California for his BitConnect-related activity.

According to the SEC's complaint, filed on September 1, 2021, from approximately August 2017 to January 2018, Arcaro served as BitConnect's lead U.S. national promoter. The complaint alleged that Arcaro was responsible for promoting BitConnect's digital asset scheme to retail investors and prospective investors in the United States, and communicating information and instructions from BitConnect to his regional promoters. The complaint further alleged that Arcaro used Future Money to lure investors into the BitConnect scheme.

The SEC's complaint charged Arcaro and Future Money with violating the registration provisions of Section 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act") and Section 15(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act"), and the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. Arcaro and Future Money consented to the entry of judgments pursuant to which they are permanently enjoined from violating the charged provisions and from offering, operating, or participating in certain marketing or sales programs and from participating directly or indirectly in a digital asset securities offering. The judgments against Arcaro and Future Money order them to pay disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and a civil penalty, if ordered by the court, in an amount to be determined by the court at a later date upon the SEC's motion.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Gwen Licardo of the SEC's Retail Strategy Task Force, Michael Baker and Pamela Sawhney of the SEC's Cyber Unit, and Jordan Baker, Jorge Tenreiro, and Mark Sylvester of the SEC's New York Regional Office.  The case is being supervised by John O. Enright, Lara S. Mehraban, and Kristina Littman.  The litigation is being conducted by Richard Primoff, Ms. Licardo, Mr. Baker, and Ms. Sawhney.

For more information, please see Press Release 2021-172.