CFTC v. Daniel Fingerhut and others (binary options and digital asset solicitation fraud, 2021)

Judgment entered

Checked against the primary document on October 2, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

Report an error in this record (cftc-daniel-fingerhut-2021) by email

In 2021, a Florida federal court enjoined Daniel Fingerhut, Itay Barak, Tal Valariola and Digital Platinum Limited and ordered about US$7 million in combined disgorgement and penalties over fraudulent solicitations for binary options and digital asset trading accounts.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	CFTC
Release number	8460-21
Date filed	2021-11-17
Date resolved	2021-11-17
Court	U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida
Status	judgment
Asset class	crypto, fx
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	Daniel Fingerhut (individual) ; Itay Barak (individual) ; Tal Valariola (individual) ; Digital Platinum Limited (entity)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $3.6m
Disgorgement: $3.4m
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: $7m
Alleged gain: —

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced this matter on November 17, 2021 as release 8460-21. The respondents named are Daniel Fingerhut, Itay Barak, Tal Valariola and Digital Platinum Limited (3 individuals, 1 entity).

The orders find the defendants spread solicitations promising free access to supposedly successful automated trading systems, presenting hypothetical and fictitious trading results as real along with fabricated testimonials. Fingerhut also made false statements to the CFTC. Nothing in the release describes wash trading.

This library applies no technique tag to the matter. The conduct is solicitation fraud, not wash trading.

Fingerhut: $400,011 in disgorgement and a $600,000 penalty. Barak, Valariola and Digital Platinum: $3 million in disgorgement and a $3 million penalty. The record totals these as $3.6 million in penalties and $3.4 million in disgorgement.

The CFTC continued to litigate against two other entity defendants and a relief defendant.

Timeline

2021-11-17 CFTC release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.