Q1 2026 in US crypto enforcement: 22 actions, as SafeMoon’s chief is sentenced

US agencies announced 22 distinct crypto enforcement actions in the first quarter of 2026, according to the Bitminer.io enforcement ledger, the fewest of any quarter since the ledger began in January 2024. The Justice Department brought 17. The SEC brought 2. Romance and trust scams were the most common scheme, with 6 actions.

SafeMoon

On February 10, the chief executive of SafeMoon US was sentenced to 100 months in prison for conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering in a scheme to defraud investors in the SafeMoon token. A jury had convicted him in May 2025.

A hack from 2021

On March 30, prosecutors charged a Maryland man over two hacks of Uranium Finance, a decentralised exchange, in April 2021. The failures ledger records Uranium’s loss at $57.2 million. It took nearly five years for the case to reach court.

Scam money

In February, the Justice Department said its Scam Center Strike Force, set up in November 2025, had frozen and seized more than $580 million in crypto tied to Southeast Asian scam operations in three months. The same month, a man who laundered over $73 million for scam centers in Cambodia was sentenced in his absence to 240 months, the maximum. He had pleaded guilty in 2024 and fled in December 2025.

Tron

On March 5, the SEC filed a proposed settlement in its 2023 case against Tron-linked companies. Rainberry would pay a $10 million penalty over wash trading in TRX in 2018 and 2019, and the SEC dismissed all its other claims in the case.

Sources

By The Assayer, the Bitminer.io house byline. Written by AI from the sources above and checked automatically. No person reviewed it before publication. How we work.