The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has finalised its case against NanoBit, a fake crypto trading platform that regulators say lured investors through manufactured trust before stealing their money, closing out litigation it first filed in September 2024.
The agency had previously flagged the case as significant for a specific reason: it marked the SEC’s first enforcement action targeting what it called a relationship investment scam, a type of fraud that relies on building personal rapport with victims rather than purely technical deception.
According to the SEC’s original complaint, the scheme ran from September 2023 through June 2024. Operators approached potential investors on platforms like Instagram before moving conversations into private WhatsApp groups, where individuals posing as financial professionals worked to gain victims’ confidence. Once trust was established, those same fake professionals told investors that NanoBit’s affiliate, NanobitUS Securities, was registered with the SEC. It was not.
Victims were shown what appeared to be a functioning trading platform, complete with dashboards displaying rising account balances and live-looking trading activity. None of it was real.
The operation eventually pushed investors toward sham initial coin offerings marketed as a path to major returns.
“The supposed financial professionals allegedly then promoted fake initial coin offerings as a way for the investors to make substantial returns,” the SEC said. “But, as alleged, no transactions took place on the NanoBit platform and investors’ funds in fact went to scheme participants who wired more than $2 million to bank accounts in Hong Kong and misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of investors’ crypto assets.”
Under the final judgment announced on Monday, NanoBit was ordered to pay nearly $1.8 million, consisting of a $1.18 million civil penalty, more than $532,000 in disgorgement, and roughly $81,200 in prejudgment interest. Across all defendants named in the case, the SEC said total fines under the judgment exceed $5 million.
NanoBit isn’t an isolated example. The SEC had already grouped it with another platform, CoinW6, in its 2024 enforcement review as part of a broader look at relationship-based investment fraud. The agency brought a similar case in May, charging Texas resident Nathan Fuller over an alleged $12.3 million scheme that promised guaranteed returns through an AI-driven crypto arbitrage bot.
Fraud built on fabricated trust and fake platforms continues to surface elsewhere in the crypto space. Security firm TRM Labs warned this month that scammers had launched World Cup-themed fraud operations, including counterfeit ticketing websites and a fixed-match betting scam aimed at capitalizing on the tournament.
The SEC has tried to get ahead of the trend through direct investor warnings. In a December 2025 alert published, the agency urged people to “never rely solely on information from group chats” when making investment decisions and encouraged investors to independently verify the background of anyone offering or selling an investment opportunity.
