US crypto enforcement in 2024: 183 actions, 47 of them from the SEC

US agencies announced 183 distinct crypto enforcement actions in 2024, according to the Bitminer.io enforcement ledger. The Justice Department accounted for 112, the SEC 47, the CFTC 14 and the Treasury’s sanctions office, OFAC, 10. A case counts again each time it reaches a new stage, so a charge, a plea and a sentence are three steps.

The pace was steady through the year, at 50, 43, 44 and 46 actions a quarter.

FTX and Terraform

Two of the largest collapses of 2022 reached major milestones in court. On March 28, the founder of FTX was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit over $11 billion. In August, the CFTC obtained a consent judgment ordering FTX and Alameda Research to pay $12.7 billion in restitution and disgorgement.

In June, Terraform Labs and its co-founder agreed to pay more than $4.5 billion to settle the SEC’s fraud claims, after a jury had found against them over the collapse of the UST stablecoin.

The SEC’s registration cases

The SEC’s 47 actions included 10 cases about registration: claims that a firm sold securities or acted as a dealer or exchange without registering. In October it sued Cumberland DRW, alleging the trading firm acted as an unregistered dealer in over $2 billion of crypto asset securities. Across all four agencies, registration cases numbered 21 in 2024. The following year, the SEC brought 26 actions in all, and registration cases fell to 11.

In March, the Justice Department charged KuCoin and two of its founders with Bank Secrecy Act and unlicensed money transmission offences.

Fraud led the count

Investment fraud was the most common scheme, with 40 actions, followed by money laundering with 23 and Ponzi schemes with 22. In January, prosecutors charged three people over HyperFund, an alleged $1.89 billion fraud that promised returns from crypto mining. In August, the SEC charged NovaTech, its two principals and six promoters over an alleged $650 million fraud that reached 200,000 investors.

Sentences

The ledger holds 34 prison sentences from 2024, with a median term of 60 months. The longest was 47 years, given to a Florida man for violent home invasions and SIM swaps carried out to steal crypto. Eleven co-conspirators were also sentenced.

Sanctions

OFAC’s 10 actions listed crypto addresses for sanctioned people and firms. In February it added two Russian nationals tied to the LockBit ransomware group, with their bitcoin and ether addresses. In September it sanctioned the exchange Cryptex, on the same day the Justice Department charged two Russian nationals over money laundering services and seized the domains of several exchanges.

Sources

1. Bitminer.io enforcement ledger: 2024
2. US Department of Justice, FTX sentencing
3. CFTC, FTX and Alameda consent judgment
4. SEC, Terraform settlement
5. SEC, Cumberland DRW complaint
6. US Department of Justice, KuCoin charges
7. OFAC, LockBit designations

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.

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