New York State Attorney General: Over $5 million in restitution recovered from cryptocurrency platform Uphold

According to Cointelegraph, New York State Attorney General Letitia James announced that over $5 million in restitution has been recovered from the cryptocurrency platform Uphold for misleading consumers and promoting fraudulent investment schemes. Between January 2019 and October 2020, Uphold promoted CredEarn on its platform and mobile application, describing it as a safe, reliable savings product offering an attractive annual percentage yield (APY). However, Uphold failed to disclose the actual risks involved, and at the time, no insurance existed in the industry to protect retail investors against losses from digital assets. In addition to making misleading claims, Uphold also failed to register as a broker or commodity trading advisor as required by law. Starting in March 2020, Cred incurred massive losses due to high-risk loans and filed for bankruptcy in November of the same year—resulting in financial harm to thousands of Uphold users worldwide. Under the settlement terms, Uphold will directly pay $5 million to affected users—more than five times the fees it collected. Any funds Uphold recovers from Cred’s bankruptcy proceedings will also be transferred to harmed users.