CFTC v. Crater, Gillespie and My Big Coin Pay (ponzi schemes, 2018)

Settled

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 4, 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-randall-crater-ponzi-schemes-2018) by email

In January 2018 the CFTC announced a sealed Massachusetts complaint against Randall Crater, Mark Gillespie and My Big Coin Pay, Inc. over the My Big Coin virtual currency. A CFTC release of February 10, 2025 says the court entered a consent order against Crater requiring more than $7.6 million in restitution, while the case remained pending against the co-defendants.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

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 complaint, filed under seal January 16, 2018, alleged that the defendants transferred customer money into personal accounts for personal expenses and luxury goods, that the supposed trading results were illusory, and that they issued more coins to quiet customers who asked questions. A restraining order froze assets. The record listed only Crater.

Outcome: CFTC release 9051-25 (February 10, 2025) says the District of Massachusetts entered a consent order against Crater that requires more than $7.6 million in restitution, with credit for payments made under the criminal restitution order, permanently enjoins him and bans him from CFTC-regulated markets and registration. It says the order found he obtained more than $7.6 million from at least 28 customers, and that he was found guilty in the parallel criminal case on July 21, 2022 and sentenced to more than eight years in prison. The release says the case remained pending against the co-defendants; this outcome covers Crater only, and we did not check the others. The order's date is not stated in the release, so the release date is used. Restitution has no field here and no penalty is reported.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the original document describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

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. 2018-01-24 CFTC release published
2. 2025-02-10 CFTC announces consent order against Crater: over $7.6 million restitution, permanent injunction and trading ban

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 press release 9051-25 (Crater consent order)

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 10, 2026. submit a correction.