My Big Coin cryptocurrency firm founder gets 8 years in prison for fraud

BOSTON — The founder of a defunct cryptocurrency enterprise was sentenced on Tuesday to greater than eight years in prison for defrauding buyers and clients out of tens of millions of {dollars} by advertising and marketing a digital foreign money referred to as My Big Coin with lies and half-truths.

Federal prosecutors had urged US District Decide Denise Casper in Boston to impose a 13-year prison time period on Randall Crater to ship a message to others in the primary sentencing of a cryptocurrency firm founder for a advertising and marketing fraud.

Whereas Ms. Casper concluded that that request went too far, she rejected Mr. Crater’s competition {that a} 30-month prison time period was adequate to punish him for his false claims, together with that My Big Coin was an actual cryptocurrency backed by gold.

(*8*) Ms. Casper stated. “But the scheme at its core was age-old, and that was fraud.”

Mr. Crater, who was sentenced to 100 months in whole and ordered to forfeit practically $7.7 million, is anticipated to enchantment. In court docket, he apologized however stated he by no means meant to defraud anybody.

“I did not set out to steal money from anyone,” he stated. “That does not mean I am not remorseful.”

A jury in July discovered Mr. Crater, 52, responsible of committing wire fraud and making illegal financial transactions in a prosecution that spilled out of a precedent-setting case by the US Commodity Futures Buying and selling Fee.

The CFTC’s 2018 lawsuit in opposition to Crater and his failed firm, Nevada-based My Big Coin Inc, led to one of many first court docket rulings holding {that a} digital foreign money could possibly be thought of a commodity inside the regulator’s jurisdiction.

Prosecutors subsequently secured Mr. Crater’s indictment in 2019 and accused him of inflicting buyers and clients to lose $7.5 million from 2014 to 2017 with lies about My Big Coin, whose title sounded much like the favored digital foreign money bitcoin.

Prosecutors stated these false claims included that My Big Coin was an actual digital foreign money, was backed by gold and had a partnership with MasterCard Prosecutors stated he used the cash to purchase automobiles, jewellery, art work and vintage cash. — Reuters

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