Voyager Ex-CEO Charged by U.S. Regulators With Fraud, Making False Claims

Source: Coindesk

Voyager Ex-CEO Charged by U.S. Regulators With Fraud, Making False Claims

Former Voyager Digital CEO Steve Ehrlich is facing complaints from the Federal Trade Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which also used the case to reinforce its view of USDC as a commodity.

By Jesse Hamilton
Oct 12, 2023 at 1:52 p.m.
Updated Oct 12, 2023 at 3:12 p.m.

U.S. regulators have targeted former Voyager Digital CEO Steve Ehrlich with lawsuits claiming he engaged in fraud and deliberately misrepresented his customers’ government protections.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced related actions against Ehrlich on Thursday, with the CFTC also including in its court filing that Circle's USDC stablecoin and bitcoin as commodities.

The CFTC accused Ehrlich of defrauding customers by misleading them about the strength of the company and doing business without proper registrations. The FTC said he lied about customers’ funds being protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“Ehrlich and Voyager lied to Voyager customers,” said Ian McGinley, the CFTC’s enforcement director, in a statement about the suit, which calls for restitution, penalties and industry bans for the former executive. “While representing they would treat customers’ digital asset commodities safely and responsibly, behind the scenes, they took shockingly reckless risks with their customers’ assets, leading to Voyager’s bankruptcy and huge customer losses.”

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Read more: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/10/12/voyager-ex-ceo-charged-by-us-regulators-with-fraud-making-false-claims/