{"id":15697,"date":"2024-07-30T20:04:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T17:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/sec-accuses-bitclout-founder-of-fraud\/"},"modified":"2024-07-30T20:04:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T17:04:39","slug":"sec-accuses-bitclout-founder-of-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/sec-accuses-bitclout-founder-of-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Accuses BitClout Founder of Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/newsroom\/press-releases\/2024-91\">charged<\/a> the founder of the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/decentralised-society-and-its-enemies-can-desoc-replace-x-facebook-and-youtube\">DeSoc<\/a> project BitClout, Nader Al-Naji, with fraud.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>According to the agency&#8217;s press release, the Web3 entrepreneur &#8220;spent more than $7 million of investor funds on personal expenses, including rent for a mansion in Beverly Hills and extravagant cash gifts to family members.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Known by the pseudonym Diamondhands, the 32-year-old Al-Naji raised over $257 million through &#8220;unregistered offerings and sales&#8221; of BitClout&#8217;s native token, BTCLT. The Commission alleges he misled investors about the &#8220;decentralized nature of the project.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\n<cite>&#8220;As alleged in our complaint, Al-Naji attempted to circumvent federal securities laws and deceive investors, mistakenly believing that being falsely decentralized would mislead regulators and avoid prosecution,&#8221; said SEC Enforcement Division Director Gurbir S. Grewal.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to the official, the agency is guided by &#8220;economic realities, not cosmetic labels.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Al-Naji&#8217;s wife and mother are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In 2017, Al-Naji founded the stablecoin project Basis (later renamed Basis). It soon shut down due to regulatory challenges, returning $133 million to investors.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, the SEC <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/sec-charges-hyperfund-with-1-7-billion-fraud\">charged<\/a> the crypto project HyperFund with defrauding investors of $1.7 billion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged the founder of the DeSoc project BitClout, Nader Al-Naji, with fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[128,465],"class_list":["post-15697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-sec","tag-social-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"21","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}