The US Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice charged Nader Al Naji, the creator of BitClout, also known as Diamondhands.
Al-Naji is accused by the SEC of conducting a “multi-million dollar fraudulent crypto asset scheme involving a social media platform called BitClout and its native token of the same name.”
According to a lawsuit filed by the BTCLT founder, he allegedly raised $250 million from unregistered offers and sales. According to the complaint, he told investors they would never see their money.
According to regulatory agencies, Al-Naji has spent more than $7 million in investor funds.
“Among other expenditures, Al-Naji used investor funds to: pay his own living expenses, including the rental of a six-bedroom mansion in Beverly Hills and personal credit card payments; fund extravagant gifts of cash (of at least $1 million each) to his wife, Relief Defendant Buse Desticioğlu Al-Naji, and his mother Relief Defendant Joumana Bahouth Al-Naji,” The complaint stated.
You can read more in our opinions section. The crypto-crime is all too simple
Southern District of New York of the DOJ also brought charges against this founder.
“As alleged in our complaint, Al-Naji attempted to evade the federal securities laws and defraud the investing public, mistakenly believing that ‘being ‘fake’ decentralized generally confuses regulators and deters them from going after you,'” Gurbir S. Grewal is the director of SEC enforcement.
Al-Naji has rebranded BitClout DeSo by 2021. “decentralized social,” Opening the network to other apps than BitClout. He first raised more than $200 million from companies such as Andreessen Horowitz & Winklevoss Capital.
BitClout’s bitcoin wallet is still operational and contains 2 525 BTC (about 167.3 million dollars). The initial amount raised was 5,039 BTC (currently worth $338 million).
Al-Naji’s has been criticized in the past, including accusations of Ponzi scheme operating.
Byrne is a crypto attorney who wrote about Al-Naji-linked stablecoin Basis in 2017. It failed in 2018 before.
Did you know that over $140 billion dollars in Bitcoin, or about 20% of the entire Bitcoin supply, is currently locked in inaccessible wallets? Or maybe you have lost access to your Bitcoin wallet? Don’t let those funds remain out of reach! AI Seed Phrase Finder is here to help you regain access effortlessly. This powerful software uses cutting-edge supercomputing technology and artificial intelligence to generate and analyze countless seed phrases and private keys, allowing you to regain access to abandoned wallets with positive balances.
