CFTC v. New York Man (ponzi schemes, 2021)

Settled

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In January 2021 the CFTC sued Jeremy Spence, who traded as Coin Signals, over an alleged bitcoin and ether Ponzi scheme that took more than $5 million from customers. On November 29, 2022 the Southern District of New York entered a consent order requiring $2,847,743 in restitution, a permanent injunction and permanent trading and registration bans. He had pleaded guilty in a parallel criminal case and been sentenced to 42 months.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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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 CFTC announced the complaint on January 26, 2021 (release 8356-21) in the Southern District of New York, with the Digital Assets Task Force involved.

The defendant was recorded as "New York Man"; he is now named.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes it as a scheme paying earlier investors with later investors' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome. CFTC release 8630-22 (December 1, 2022) says the court entered a consent order on November 29, 2022 that resolves the CFTC action. The order requires restitution of $2,847,743, permanently enjoins Spence from further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC rules as charged, and imposes permanent registration and trading bans; the release does not mention a civil monetary penalty. The order includes findings that he ran a Ponzi scheme and concealed it, and the release states that in the parallel criminal case he pleaded guilty to commodities fraud, was sentenced on May 11, 2022 to 42 months in prison and was ordered to pay the same restitution amount. Spence agreed to the order, so these are findings entered on consent.

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.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2021-01-26 CFTC release published
2. 2022-11-29 Consent order entered (restitution, injunction, trading and registration bans)

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
• CFTC order or complaint
• CFTC release 8630-22: consent order against Spence

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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.