CFTC v. Glenn Olson (rigged binary options execution, 2021)

Settled

Machine-extracted, pending human review. The structured fields on this page were parsed automatically from the regulator's own release, linked below. Read the primary document before relying on any figure here, and tell us if something is wrong.

In 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued an administrative order against Glenn Olson for his role at Blue Bit Banc, alleging conduct this library classifies as rigged binary options execution. Olson admitted manipulating or fabricating trades to customers' disadvantage and was ordered to disgorge $241,070, jointly owing $846,405 in restitution with others found liable in the related Kantor matter.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$241k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$241k

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 on April 6, 2021, as release 8374-21, an administrative settlement with Glenn Olson, once of Brooklyn, New York, over his own part in the Blue Bit Banc binary options operation — the same scheme a federal court had already ruled on in the CFTC's earlier default order against Blake Harrison Kantor and others (release 8069-19).

By Olson's own admission, he spent from roughly April 2014 to March 2018 working under assumed names to sell Blue Bit's binary options to customers, eventually overseeing other salespeople out of the firm's Manhattan office. He admitted lying to customers about how profitable trading through Blue Bit actually was, admitted involvement in altering or inventing the results recorded in customer accounts to those customers' detriment, admitted blocking withdrawal requests, and admitted taking customer money for himself. Separately, he admitted a role in moving customer balances into ATM Coin, a cryptocurrency the order calls worthless notwithstanding claims it carried real value.

This library tags the matter as rigged binary options execution on the strength of Olson's own admission that trades were manipulated or fabricated, distinct from the separate misrepresentation and misappropriation allegations in the same order.

Olson is ordered to give up $241,070 of his own gains and, jointly with the defendants in the Kantor matter, to pay $846,405 back to victims — the identical restitution figure recorded on that earlier case, not an additional loss layered on top of it. This library's disgorgement field carries only the $241,070 that is Olson's alone; the shared restitution obligation is left unrepeated here since it already appears against the Kantor record. Olson is also barred permanently from CFTC registration and from trading anywhere the CFTC regulates, and the order puts the number of affected customers at no fewer than 27, collectively out $846,405.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Rigged binary options execution — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2021-04-06 CFTC order filing and settling charges

Primary documents

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

• CFTC release 8374-21

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.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 29, 2026. submit a correction.