+1-888-741-7503

|Richard@frankowskifirm.com

Bitcoin Still Booming, Despite Challenges

Despite headlines centered on challenges facing the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin is still booming with some of the highest mining and transaction rates in its history. The digital currency has yet to find the "killer app" that would make it an essential part of the average consumer's Internet toolkit. Several bitcoin-related services shut down in recent months, some amid allegations of fraud, which only highlighted the continued risks that deals tied to the currency can pose for casual investors. As a result, some companies are building alternative networks based on the technology behind bitcoin. The bitcoin network's hash rate, which is a measurement of how much computing power being devoted to mining the currency, reached an all-time high in December. The month also had the week with the most bitcoin transactions of any seven-day period since bitcoin's inception. At present, bitcoin is trading roughly 35% higher against the dollar than at this point last year, at roughly $435 per bitcoin, though that [...]

By |January 6th, 2016|Uncategorized|
Read More

Vermont Man Charged By SEC For Operating Ponzi Scheme

Homero Joshua Garza of Brattleboro, Vermont faces federal charges alleging that he operated a Ponzi scheme that bilked thousands of investors. The SEC charged Garza and his two Bitcoin-mining companies, GAW Miners LLC and ZenMiner LLC, with running the scheme. The companies sold $20 million worth of what appeared to be shares in Hashlets, digital mining contracts, from August to December 2014. The Hashlets were advertised as "always profitable and never obsolete" and were sold to over 10,000 investors. The SEC filed its complaint in U.S. District Court in Connecticut. In the complaint, the SEC defines mining for Bitcoin or other virtual currencies as "applying computer power to try to solve complex equations that verify a group of transactions in that virtual currency. The first computer (or collection of computers) to solve such an equation is awarded new units of that virtual currency." The SEC says that the companies oversold the Hashlets, which were created so that investors could have a [...]

By |December 2nd, 2015|Fraud, Press Releases & News, SEC|
Read More

Texas Bitcoin Ponzi Scheme Operator Pleads Guilty To Securities Fraud

Trendon Shavers, a 33-year-old from McKinney, Texas who operated a Ponzi scheme using the virtual currency bitcoin, pleaded guilty to securities fraud this week. Shavers started a company, called Bitcoin Savings & Trust, in 2011 which he used to acquire bitcoins from potential investors via the web, telling them he would pay investors one percent interest on their investment every three days or seven percent a week. Rather, Shavers used the majority of the bitcoins to pay back previous investors, the defining element of a Ponzi scheme. He spent the remaining funds on a used BMW M5, a $1,000 dinner at a steakhouse in Las Vegas, and a number of casino outings. Shavers pleaded guilty in Manhattan court to one charge of securities fraud in what is being considered the first United States criminal fraud case involving bitcoin. Shavers acquired more than $750,000 bitcoins worth about $4.5 million when he ceased repaying investors and quickly shut down the company in 2012, [...]

By |September 22nd, 2015|Fraud, Press Releases & News, SEC|
Read More

Texan Charged In First Bitcoin Securities Fraud Case

Trendon Shavers of McKinney, Texas, operator of Bitcoin Savings and Trust, was charged yesterday with defrauding investors in what authorities are calling the first federal criminal securities fraud case arising from a bitcoin-related Ponzi scheme. Shavers is charged with misappropriating roughly 146,000 of 764,000 bitcoins, at the time worth over $4.5 million, which he had accrued between September 2011 and September 2012 by promising "absurdly high" interest rates, according to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Shavers' criminal case follows on the heels of a September 18 order by a Texas federal judge that Shavers forfeit $40.7 million in illicit gains, interest, and fines in a related civil case brought by the SEC. Under the online moniker "pirateat40" Shavers is believed to have gained control of seven percent of the bitcoin market by promising investors as much as seven percent weekly interest, or 3,641 percent annualized, based on his ability to trade the currency and the fact that he promised investors that [...]

By |November 7th, 2014|Press Releases & News|
Read More

Fill Out The Form To Receive A Free Confidential Consultation

Consultation

The recoveries, verdicts, favorable outcomes, and testimonials described on this site are not an indication of future results. Every case is different, and regardless of what friends, family, or other individuals may say about what a case is worth, each case must be evaluated on its own facts and circumstances as they apply to the law. The valuation of a case depends on facts, the damages, the jurisdiction, the venue, the witnesses, the parties, and the testimony, among many other factors. No representation is made that the quality of the legal services performed is greater than the quality of the legal services performed by other lawyers.

Disclaimer: Mr. Frankowski is licensed in Alabama,Florida and Texas. He is not licensed in any other state including Nevada and California. Mr. Frankowski has represented investors from all over the country in securities cases including: Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas.