Court Orders $5.5 Million Against NanoBit for Fake Crypto Trading Platform

Overview

• A federal court in the Eastern District of New York entered a final judgment on June 16, 2026, requiring NanoBit and linked defendants to pay about $5.52 million and imposing permanent injunctions against future securities activity.
• The SEC found that NanoBit ran a sham trading site that showed fabricated account dashboards and never executed real trades, using those fake screens to coax deposits from investors.
• Operators recruited victims through social media like Instagram, moved them into WhatsApp groups where they posed as financial professionals, promoted fake ICOs, and pressured investors to send funds.
• The scam stole funds from at least 18 investors in 2023–2024, with more than $2 million wired to bank accounts in Hong Kong and hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto assets misappropriated.
• The judgment breaks down into fines, disgorgement and interest across multiple defendants and closes the SEC’s civil case while leaving collection, cross‑border recovery and related enforcement steps to follow, and it fits a pattern of recent SEC crypto‑fraud actions.