Autor Cointelegraph By Jesse Coghlan

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has sued a North Carolina man, accusing him of operating a commodity pool featuring crypto that defrauded investors of more than $14 million.The CFTC’s lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday, alleged that Trevor Vernon and his company, Argent Capital Management, operated a commodity pool featuring equity index futures, options on equity index futures and crypto.The agency alleged that from March 2022 to February 2026, Vernon solicited $14.8 million from at least 60 investors and falsely claimed he was a successful trader, even though his trading actually “resulted in consistent and catastrophic losses” for the pool’s investors.The lawsuit is a rare crypto-related enforcement action from the CFTC, which is angling to oversee the crypto industry while facing questions from some lawmakers about whether it has the resources to police the complicated and rapidly growing sector.The agency alleged that as part of the scheme, Vernon traded crypto, including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), which the CFTC asserted were commodities.CFTC alleges Vernon ran pool “akin to a Ponzi scheme”The CFTC alleged in its complaint that Vernon made false statements to existing and potential investors, including in quarterly account updates and monthly performance emails.The agency claimed Vernon’s trading of crypto, as well as futures and options on stock indices, resulted in losses of more than $8.6 million.Related: CME Group sues CFTC over crypto perpetual futures The CFTC said Vernon never disclosed the losses to investors and alleged he misappropriated $3 million to pay investors “in a manner akin to a Ponzi scheme” to hide his losses. He also allegedly misappropriated $136,000 for private air travel, according to the lawsuit. The CFTC accused Argent Capital Management of failing to register with the agency as required by federal commodities law, and claimed Vernon made false statements to the regulator in January about the issues alleged in its complaint.The CFTC charged Vernon with seven counts related to fraud, failure to register and making false statements.It asked the court to permanently ban Vernon from registration and trading, along with disgorgement, penalties and restitution.Features: From Bitcoin critics to blockchain believers: The 5 biggest crypto backflips

Crypto gaming company Yield Guild Games says it has shut down its crypto game publishing arm, YGG Play, and will instead focus on feeding data to artificial intelligence.Yield Guild Games said Monday that it would also lay off 35 employees, adding that a prolonged crypto market downturn and a “similarly brutal” video game publishing market meant YGG Play “cannot be commercially sustainable.”It said a major market crash on Oct. 10 “fundamentally altered retail market psychology, and we do not expect the crypto consumer market or the Web3 games publishing market to recover sufficiently in the near term.”The layoffs add to the more than 5,000 jobs that crypto companies have cut this year, with many citing a crypto market slump and a refocus toward opportunities presented by artificial intelligence.“Sunsetting YGG Play is a heavy decision, but it is a market decision, not a product decision,” Yield Guild Games co-founder Gabby Dizon said. “I am proud of what this team achieved under such tough conditions.”Source: Yield Guild GamesYield Guild Games said it would be closing YGG Play’s website, its web app that launched games and its community-focused rewards site. It would also end all marketing support for third-party games.The company’s board game-style browser game LOL Land and its puzzle game Waifu Sweeper would also be taken down. The Web3 versions of the baseball game GIGACHADBAT and the battle game Ragnarok Breaker would continue as normal.The company said sunsetting YGG Play and its restructure would extend its operating runway to four years, adding it had $20.6 million in its treasury as of the end of the first quarter.Yield Guild pivots to AI dataYield Guild Games said it would refocus its resources “into the AI data economy” to provide information that can be used to train AI models.It will initially create a pipeline for gaming datasets, and said its global community “can generate these behavioral datasets just by playing.”The company said it was “an organic next step” and the data would help AI networks understand “human irrationality and emergent behavior,” as video game players “constantly make complex, split-second decisions.”More than 5,000 crypto layoffs in 2026The crypto industry has cut over 5,000 jobs so far this year, with Block Inc. undertaking the largest round of layoffs in February by cutting 4,000 staff, or about half its workforce at the time.Last month, crypto infrastructure company BitGo laid off 15% of its staff, an estimated 90 people, while Robinhood cut 10% of its workforce.Earlier in the year, Kraken laid off 150 workers, and Coinbase cut 700 employees. Gemini also laid off 200 employees in February and Crypto.com cut about 180 staff a month later, both citing the use of AI.Magazine: Solana exec trolls crypto gamers, Pixel tackles play-to-earn issues: Web3 Gamer

US President Donald Trump says he got involved in crypto “for politics” and became pro-crypto after seeing how much money the industry was making.At a press conference in the Oval Office on Monday to announce “Trump Accounts,” an investment account for children under 18, Trump was asked whether the accounts would allow for Bitcoin (BTC).“I’ve become a big crypto guy only for one reason: If we don’t have it, China’s going to have it,” Trump answered. “I’m a fan, I wasn’t initially, I didn’t know much about it, but, for some of my first term, I wasn’t much involved, and I watched it grow, and it’s a huge industry.”“I got involved in it a little bit for politics,” Trump added. “I realized there are a lot of people that love crypto.”The comments shed new light on why Trump pivoted his stance towards crypto. In his first term, Trump said he was “not a fan” of crypto and called Bitcoin “a scam.” Since then, he and his family have built deep business interests in crypto, and Trump has faced criticism for his pro-crypto stance while being connected to the industry.“As a businessman, I see a lot of money starting to come in with Bitcoin and, you know, the different forms, and I said: ‘This thing’s got a lot of life,’ and then I hear China was going to make a heavy move on it,” he added. “If we didn’t do it, China would do it.”Trump’s pro-crypto pivot attracted the help of the crypto lobby, which spent around $170 million in the 2024 election to help elect mostly Republicans, and is set to spend even more backing pro-crypto candidates in the November midterms.Donald Trump speaks to reporters about “Trump Accounts” at the White House on Monday. Source: YouTubeTrump says he doesn’t talk to family about crypto interestsTrump said he doesn’t talk to his family about their involvement in crypto, an area that made him more than $1.4 billion last year, according to financial disclosures released June 30.Trump and his sons are listed as co-founders of World Liberty Financial, a crypto platform that generated a large portion of Trump’s crypto-related income last year, but the president said his interest in crypto is “not a question of a personal thing.”Related: Donald Trump says ‘nothing wrong’ with $1.4B crypto windfall while in office“I let my kids do whatever the hell they do. I don’t talk to them, ever, talk to them about it,” Trump said.Trump claimed that the Biden administration “dropped all investigations” related to crypto when he “went very pro-crypto.” However, under the Trump administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission stopped multiple investigations and withdrew or settled enforcement actions filed against crypto companies, some of which had donated to Trump.“Every time I see a crypto guy where they dropped an investigation, I said: ‘You’re lucky I’m president,” Trump said.Magazine: SBF will never get a pardon, Trump peace deal boosts Bitcoin: Hodlers Digest

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage reportedly accepted gifts that he did not publicly disclose from a crypto entrepreneur convicted of fraud in the US, according to The Sunday Times. The news outlet reported on Saturday that Farage was gifted staff, security, transport and accommodation by George Cottrell, an aristocrat involved in an offshore crypto casino who has been a close adviser to Farage for more than 10 years.Farage said in a statement on Sunday that he “followed the rules” over the gifts from Cottrell, which he received before he was elected a member of parliament in July 2024, and called The Times’ report a “hit job.”It is the second time Farage has faced reports of undeclared gifts from wealthy figures tied to crypto, an industry he has advocated for while in parliament that is facing increasing regulatory scrutiny, with the Treasury having temporarily banned political donations made in cryptocurrencies in March.A parliamentary standards watchdog opened an inquiry in May over whether Farage failed to declare a 5 million British pounds ($6.7 million) gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, who partly owns stablecoin giant Tether.Nigel Farage appears at the Bitcoin 2025 conference holding his party’s draft crypto legislation. Source: Gage SkidmoreFarage has argued he does not need to declare Harborne’s gift, as it was given to him to pay for personal security before he was an MP.Cottrell’s reported gifts include security, use of houseThe Sunday Times reported that Cottrell, who is involved in a gambling site called Tether.bet that uses the Tether (USDt) stablecoin, provided Farage with drivers and security made up primarily of former soldiers.Cottrell also reportedly recruited and paid for three staff members to help with the Reform leader’s social media and, since the election, has let Farage use a rented five-story house near Buckingham Palace. A Reform source told The Times that Farage almost always stayed at his own home and did not routinely use the property.Farage registered only one benefit from Cottrell upon entering Parliament, a benefit of less than 9,300 British pounds ($12,400) for travel, security and accommodation to attend an event in Belgium.In 2016, Cottrell was arrested and charged in the US with 21 offenses for his role in a money laundering plot. He pleaded guilty to a single wire fraud charge after a plea deal and spent eight months in prison.Farage reported over alleged crypto lobbyingThe Times’ report follows a report in The Guardian on Friday that the standards commissioner was urged to investigate whether Farage lobbied the Bank of England to drop its digital currency plans.Related: Crypto billionaires bankroll Nigel Farage’s pro-crypto partyLabour MP and chair of a parliamentary anti-corruption group, Phil Brickell, reported Farage to the commissioner, saying he “claimed credit for persuading the Bank to soften its position” on a central bank digital currency.Brickell said that Harborne “stood to benefit from opposition to a state-backed digital currency that could compete with private stablecoins.”“This is not simply a debate about cryptocurrency. It is about whether an MP who has received millions from one individual should be lobbying for policies that could increase the value and profitability of that [Reform] donor’s investments,” said Brickell.Farage and Reform have championed crypto, with the party publishing draft legislation last year with the goal of making the UK “the world’s premier hub for cryptocurrency.”Reform was also the first UK political party to accept donations in Bitcoin (BTC). Farage has also proposed cutting capital gains taxes on crypto from 24% to 10% and called for the Bank of England to create a Bitcoin reserve.Magazine: Guide to the top and emerging global crypto hubs: Mid-2026 

Nearly 1 million buyers of Official Trump (TRUMP), US President Donald Trump’s memecoin, have lost a collective $3.8 billion on the token as of the end of June, newly reported analysis shows.As of the end of last month, 988,905 TRUMP buyers, or around two out of every three buyers, have lost money on the memecoin, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing a report by analytics firm Nansen.Those buyers lost a total of $3.81 billion, which includes those who have held on to the token at a loss.The report comes days after Trump’s annual financial disclosure, released on Tuesday, revealed he earned more than $1.4 billion in income from his crypto-related ventures last year, raising fresh concerns about the president’s crypto dealings while in office.Just under half a million wallets had reportedly recorded a profit on the token, totaling $4 billion, which Nansen said reflected “a small number of early buyers capturing enormous gains while the broad retail majority absorbed the losses.”Donald Trump posted to X on Jan. 18 about his new self-branded memecoin. Source: Donald TrumpThe nearly 1,000-page disclosure showed Trump had made over $630 million on his TRUMP memecoin, while all buyers of the token taken together made a net profit of around $200 million in comparison.Trump launched the memecoin just days before he re-entered office in January 2025, where the token quickly peaked at over $73. It has since fallen by over 97% and currently trades at $1.70, according to CoinGecko.World Liberty Financial token buyers also likely lost outNansen also analyzed World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the token tied to the crypto trading platform of the same name that lists Trump and his three sons as co-founders.WLFI was first sold directly to investors at 1.5 cents, then at 5 cents. Nansen said those who bought WLFI at 5 cents have likely made a small profit, but of the nearly 27,000 wallets the company tracked, 85% had recorded a loss, which amounted to $83 million in total, while the remaining wallets profited a total of $23 million.Nansen said there are likely more investors who have lost on the token, as other buyers purchased WLFI on exchanges where the data is not public. The token was made available to the public via secondary exchanges in September.Related: Senate Dems urge probe into $500M crypto deal between Trumps, UAEMeanwhile, Trump’s financial disclosure showed that he earned just under $800 million from the World Liberty Financial platform last year, as a business tied to Trump collects 75% of the sales of WLFI regardless of its price.In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Trump dodged questions about perceived conflicts of interest and said there was “nothing illegal” and “nothing wrong” with his disclosed crypto profits and claimed that other people were responsible for his investments.Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions