Crypto Treasury Firms "Swarming" Public Markets Via SPACs, Reverse Mergers

Crypto Treasury Firms Swarm Wall Street in SPAC, Merger Boom

A multibillion-dollar capital markets experiment is unfolding on Wall Street, as entrepreneurs use blank-check companies and reverse mergers to take their holdings of digital assets public.

Firms from SoftBank Group Corp.-backed Twenty One Capital and Justin Sun’s Tron Inc. to influencer Anthony Pompliano’s ProCap Financial Inc. are raising equity and convertible debt to buy crypto — injecting the assets into vehicles that already trade on a stock exchange, with varying degrees of financial engineering.

The wager: that markets will keep rewarding leveraged access to volatile tokens. That’s even as short sellers like Jim Chanos warn the model only works in the good times — and retail investors may be left holding the bag if token premiums vanish.

Bernie Madoff of cows cost investors $100M in ‘Ghost Cattle’ Ponzi scheme: suit

A Kentucky cattleman allegedly conned dozens of investors out of $100 million with promises of non-existent “ghost” cattle and the profits from their slaughter before taking his own life.

Now, attorneys, investigators, his alleged victims, and his grieving family have been left to pick up the pieces.

On Thursday, attorneys Mark Bryant, Emily Roark, and David Bryant of Bryant Law Center, Ron Parry of Strauss Troy, and William F. McMurry of William F. McMurry and Associates have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of residents in Kentucky who, they allege, were defrauded in a cattle investment Ponzi scheme.

The lawsuit accuses Community Financial Services Bank, RABO AgriFinance, and Mechanics Bank of enabling the scheme by providing financial backing and ignoring “clear signs of misconduct, causing devastating financial losses for dozens of Kentucky investors.”

Coinbase sues Oregon Gov. Kotek for public records over crypto policy shift amid charges brought against the firm

Coinbase has lodged charges against Oregon Governor Tina Kotek, accusing her office of stonewalling the release of documents related to a lawsuit the state brought against the exchange earlier this year.

In a complaint filed in the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the County of Marion, Coinbase said the state “changed course” when suing the exchange as part of a “securities enforcement action” in April after previously stating that cryptocurrencies were not regulated by the state as securities.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield sued Coinbase this spring claiming the company facilitated the sale of unregistered cryptocurrencies “to people in Oregon,” potentially exposing them to pump-and-dump schemes and fraud. The state’s charges mirror charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023 under the Biden administration that were later dropped in the new Trump administration.

SEC Drops Landmark Mutual Fund Case Against Pinnacle Advisors

The SEC’s first enforcement action targeting alleged violations of an Obama-era mutual fund liquidity rule is coming to an end after the agency agreed to drop the case against Pinnacle Advisors LLC, its trustees, and executives.

The Securities and Exchange Commission under Chairman Paul Atkins and the Pinnacle defendants agreed to dismiss the litigation with prejudice, according to a joint notice filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York.