U.S. regulators allege Goliath Ventures raised hundreds of millions from customers for crypto liquidity pools that were never actually used as promised.
The CFTC and SEC filed separate civil cases under different legal theories, leading each agency to cite a different total in damages to investors.
Delgado has pleaded guilty in a parallel criminal case, but customer recovery, restitution and civil penalties remain unresolved.
U.S. regulators filed new civil cases against Goliath Ventures and its founder, Christopher Delgado, over an alleged crypto investment fraud that drew at least $397 million from customers. The CFTC says about 1,611 people sent money after being told it would earn returns in crypto liquidity pools.
The SEC filed a separate case the same day. It used different figures, alleging that Goliath raised at least $425 million from more than 1,300 investors. The two figures should not be combined; they allege different conduct. Both remain allegations, not proven facts.
The cases describe a business that borrowed DeFi language to make a familiar Ponzi structure look technical and credible. Regulators allege that customer money did not go into the promised liquidity pools.
Regulators say the pools did not exist
Goliath allegedly told customers their funds would support liquidity pools on decentralized exchanges. In real DeFi markets, liquidity pools hold crypto assets that traders can swap against. Participants can earn fees or other rewards, but they also face technical, market and smart‑contract risks.
According to the CFTC, Goliath did not deploy customer funds to those pools at all. Instead, the complaint says the company used new contributions to pay supposed returns and principal to earlier customers.
The agency says at least $87 million went to those Ponzi payments. It also alleges that at least $174 million went to Goliath directors and staff, often as recruitment commissions.
The CFTC and SEC totals differ because the cases rest on different statutes, not different bookkeeping. The CFTC’s complaint proceeds under the Commodity Exchange Act. It treats the bitcoin and ether Goliath promised to trade as commodities, and its $397 million figure covers money tied to that trading pitch. The SEC’s complaint treats the Goliath arrangement itself as an unregistered securities offering. It says the joint venture agreements, with their guaranteed returns and profit-sharing terms, functioned as investment contracts regardless of which crypto assets sat underneath them. Its $425 million figure covers what it calls securities-offering proceeds.
The figures should not be added together. They describe overlapping conduct measured under separate legal frameworks, not two distinct pools of victim money.
Fake records made returns look real
The alleged crypto fraud relied on documents that made Goliath Ventures’ investment program appear active. The CFTC says the company circulated fabricated account statements showing nonexistent profits. It also alleges that Goliath used sham audit reports to reassure customers.
These fabricated records can be persuasive when customers have no straightforward way to verify on‑chain activity. A dashboard, statement or audit label can create a sense of control when the underlying assets are not independently visible.
The complaint says Delgado used at least $48 million for personal spending. Regulators listed property, vehicles, jewelry and a yacht among the alleged purchases. The CFTC also says corporate cards covered at least $21 million in other spending funded by customers.
The civil cases follow a guilty plea
The civil complaints are new, but the criminal case against Delgado is already further along. The Justice Department said he pleaded guilty on June 30 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. His sentencing is scheduled for October 8.
While the sentencing will settle his criminal liability, it will have no bearing on the CFTC and SEC cases. The civil courts still need to decide penalties, restitution, disgorgement and other relief.
The CFTC seeks restitution for customers, disgorgement of gains, civil monetary penalties, trading and registration bans and an injunction. The SEC says Delgado agreed to a bifurcated settlement, which leaves monetary remedies for later court determination.
For affected customers, the most important issue is not the headline contribution total. It is how much money can be recovered and returned.
The filings do not establish the final victim‑loss amount. They also do not show which assets, properties or accounts remain available for restitution. Some customers may have received payments before Goliath stopped operating, while others may have recovered little or nothing.
The filings also leave open questions about others who may have been involved. Regulators have not said whether additional Goliath staff, recruiters or service providers will face action. Courts may still examine whether commission recipients or other transferees must return money.
Delgado’s sentencing on October 8 will fix his prison term. It will not fix how much of the $397 million customers ever see again.
Russian central bank has proposed limited retail trading access to Bitcoin, Ether and USDT through regulated crypto providers.
Ordinary investors would face a 300,000-ruble annual purchase cap per intermediary and would need to pass a knowledge test.
The proposal is not final, and September 1 marks the wider legal framework rather than guaranteed trading access.
The Bank of Russia has named Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s USDT in proposed rules for ordinary investors using regulated Russian exchanges. The August 11 draft would limit non-qualified investors to 300,000 rubles in annual purchases through each intermediary.
The proposal gives Russian retail crypto trading a defined starting list for the first time, though access remains narrow. Investors would have to pass a knowledge test, use regulated intermediaries and stay within the purchase limit.
However, the three assets are not automatically available across Russian exchanges. The central bank is accepting comments through August 24, and the draft must still complete the regulatory process before it becomes operative.
Which assets make the list
The central bank selected Bitcoin, Ether and USDT using criteria set by Russia’s new crypto law. Eligible assets must meet requirements involving market value, average daily trading volume and at least five years of price history on overseas platforms.
That approach leaves smaller and newer cryptocurrencies outside the retail market at launch. Qualified investors would have broader access to assets traded on exchanges and over-the-counter markets. They would not face the same purchase cap.
The inclusion of USDT also gives retail investors access to a dollar-linked stablecoin, though it cannot remove the related issuer, sanctions or counterparty risks. Tether can freeze tokens at specific addresses, while regulated Russian providers will decide which services and custody arrangements they offer.
Under the proposal, each broker, crypto exchange operator or asset manager could sell up to 300,000 rubles of approved crypto to one non-qualified investor per year. The Bank of Russia’s wording makes the limit specific to each intermediary, not one combined allowance across the market.
That structure could let an investor use more than one provider, although the draft does not explain how platforms will coordinate purchase records. It also leaves practical questions about fees, deposits, withdrawals and asset custody.
Before trading, every investor would have to complete a test and review information about crypto risks. The requirement applies regardless of whether the person qualifies for the capped retail market or the broader professional market.
What actually changes on September 1?
President Vladimir Putin signed the underlying law on August 4. Most of its provisions take effect September 1, creating rules for organized trading, clearing, licensed intermediaries and digital depositories. Market participants then have a transition period until July 1, 2027 to complete registration, obtain required licenses and adjust internal systems to the new rules.
September 1 does not guarantee that Russian retail investors can begin crypto trading right away. The central bank’s directive is still a draft, and providers will need the systems and permissions required to offer the assets. The final instruction would take effect only after official publication and the applicable waiting period.
Russia will also continue prohibiting crypto payments for goods and services inside the country. The framework allows specified use in cross-border settlements, but buying Bitcoin through a broker would not make it legal tender or require merchants to accept it.
The proposal would move part of Russian crypto trading activity into domestic financial infrastructure. Investors currently use offshore exchanges, peer-to-peer services and other routes that may provide less consistent custody and disclosure.
However, regulated access inside Russia does not guarantee access to global liquidity. Western sanctions affect Russian banks, crypto businesses and payment routes. Foreign platforms can restrict Russian customers, while stablecoin issuers and other service providers can block particular addresses.
Those constraints are especially relevant to USDT. The token may trade through a Russian intermediary, but its underlying network and issuer controls remain outside the country’s regulatory system.
The central bank’s response to the consultation will determine how soon retail crypto trading actually begins. A final directive should clarify when the three assets can begin trading, how the annual cap will work across providers and what rules apply when customers move assets away from regulated custody.
The Bitcoin BIP-110 fork stalled after mining only two blocks while the main chain surged hundreds ahead.
The minority branch lost nearly all hash power, pushing its next difficulty reset years away unless miners return.
The split has not activated BIP-110; everyday users remain on the dominant chain as governance and mining disputes unfold.
Bitcoin’s BIP-110 fork attempt produced two blocks over the weekend and then stalled. By Tuesday, the dominant Bitcoin chain had climbed to block 961,959, more than 300 blocks ahead of the minority branch, which has not moved since Saturday. The split began at block 961,632, when nodes enforcing BIP-110 rejected a block, mined by Antpool, that did not signal support for the proposal.
Miners had signalled support in only 51 of the previous 2,016 blocks. That’s 2.53% and far below the 55% needed even to lock the proposal in, let alone put it into effect. The fork did not change that: it only separated a minority of enforcing nodes from the rest of Bitcoin.
The dominant chain has continued normally. The enforcing branch has produced no block since Saturday. Its main source of mining power walked away over the weekend before signaling it might return. A separate dispute over the proposal’s editorial handling has already cost one of its authors his role as a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal editor.
What does it mean for a blockchain to fork?
Bitcoin’s ledger is a single chain of blocks. Each one records a batch of transactions and points back to the block before it. Every computer running Bitcoin software, called a node, checks new blocks against the same set of rules before accepting them. As long as every node agrees on the rules, there is only one chain.
A fork happens when two groups of nodes start applying different rules and end up disagreeing about which block belongs next at the same position in the chain. That is what happened at block 961,632. Antpool produced a block without a specific marker, called a signal, that BIP-110 requires. Nodes running ordinary Bitcoin software accepted that block, because it broke none of their rules. Nodes running BIP-110 software rejected it, because their rules required the marker, and instead built on a different block supplied by another miner, Roughnecks.
From that point on, two separate versions of Bitcoin’s history exist side by side. Both started from the same blocks up to 961,631 and diverge after. Miners can choose which version to keep extending, the same way they choose which valid block to build on any other day. That choice is not symmetric. Miners get paid in whichever chain’s coins they mine. But those coins are worth something only if someone accepts them in exchange for goods, services or other currencies. Almost every miner kept extending the chain that exchanges and merchants already recognize, which is why the BIP-110 branch attracted only one significant miner and lost it within a day.
BIP-110 seeks to temporarily restrict methods used to place images, text and other non-payment data inside Bitcoin transactions. Supporters argue that these limits would protect block space for monetary use. Critics say users should remain free to buy block space for any valid transaction.
The proposal uses a signalling system based on a field inside each mined block. Miners had a first chance to adopt BIP-110 voluntarily: if 55% of blocks in a single stretch carried the signal, the rule would lock in early. That never came close to happening.
The mandatory-signalling window that followed, running from block 961,632 through 963,647, was not a fallback improvised after voluntary signaling failed. It was the plan from the start. Nodes running BIP-110 software would simply reject any block without the signal, forcing the issue instead of continuing to just count how many miners agreed. The same approach forced SegWit through in 2017. But that only worked because most of the Bitcoin economy, exchanges, businesses, ordinary node operators, was already on board before enforcement began. Miners had little choice but to comply. BIP-110 reached its enforcement date without anything close to that backing. It split off the small group enforcing it; it did not bring miners into line.
Antpool’s block at 961,632 carried no signal, so BIP-110 nodes rejected it and followed a rival block instead, built by Roughnecks using Ocean’s DATUM system, which lets individual miners assemble their own block templates and choose whether to signal.
Why did the minority chain stall after two blocks?
The BIP-110 minority chain added blocks 961,632 and 961,633, both mined by Roughnecks through Ocean’s DATUM system. No third block had appeared by Tuesday. Bitcoin’s dominant chain, meanwhile, reached block 961,959 in the same stretch, a gap of more than 300 blocks.
Finding a valid block requires solving a computational puzzle. Bitcoin sets how hard that puzzle is, called mining difficulty, based on how much total computing power the network has. That difficulty only resets every 2,016 blocks. The BIP-110 branch split away carrying the same difficulty level Bitcoin had at full network power, then lost more than 99% of that power within a day. It is now trying to solve the same puzzle with a small fraction of the computers, so its blocks arrive far slower than the usual ten minutes.
That imbalance also determines when the branch could catch a break. A live tracker of the minority chain put its path to an easier difficulty target at roughly 6.3 years away as of Monday, up from an estimate of 350 days just one day earlier. The estimate is recalculated from recent block production, so every hour without a new block pushes it further out. Michael Saylor, Strategy’s chairman, offered his own estimate on Aug. 9, putting the branch’s hashpower at about 0.15% of Bitcoin’s total and its path to a difficulty adjustment at roughly 25 years. The two figures come from different sources and different moments, but they agree on the direction: the longer the chain sits idle, the more distant its own fix becomes.
At ~0.15% of Bitcoin's hashpower, BIP-110 must mine 2,015 more blocks before its first difficulty adjustment. At today's rate, that is ~25 years. Anyone can fork Bitcoin. Without security, utility, capital, and users, a fork is irrelevant. Consensus is earned, not declared.
Roughnecks halted its mining operation on Sunday and told other miners to stand down, a decision that coincided with Ocean’s displayed mining output falling by roughly 96.5% over the weekend. The retreat was brief. Roughnecks has since signalled it may resume mining the branch. BIP-110 supporters are now discussing an even more drastic option: changing the branch’s underlying computational puzzle to separate it from Bitcoin’s existing specialized mining hardware entirely. However, that would require new or repurposed equipment and would restart the branch’s computing power from zero.
The episode also complicated the idea that Ocean backs BIP-110 as a pool. Simple Mining, which also mines through Ocean, produced a non-signalling block on the dominant chain days after the split and said the decision not to follow BIP-110 was deliberate. Ocean’s DATUM system leaves that choice to individual miners; the pool itself takes no position.
Why is a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal editor now out of a job?
BIP-110’s stall was not the only fallout. On Aug. 9, Bitcoin developer Mark Erhardt, known as Murch and one of the volunteer editors who maintain the official Bitcoin Improvement Proposal repository, recommended removing fellow editor Luke Dashjr from that role. Erhardt alleged Dashjr had used his editorial authority to favor BIP-110, a proposal Dashjr helped draft, including trying to assign it a BIP number before it had been discussed on the developer mailing list and merging a related change within minutes of it being opened.
Dashjr rejected the allegations and said Erhardt should be the one removed instead. Other editors and Bitcoin Core contributors, including Olaoluwa Osuntokun and Matt Corallo, backed Erhardt’s motion. On Aug. 10, editor Jon Atack confirmed Dashjr no longer held administrative access to the BIPs repository, and the change was merged into the project’s editor list. Dashjr called the move an abuse of power.
BIP editors hold an administrative role: assigning numbers to proposals and checking that they followed the required process. It is not a technical role. The removal is a governance fight over whether BIP-110 received fair procedural treatment on its way to the fork that split Bitcoin’s chain.
Is this really over?
Not everyone treats the outcome as settled. Himanshu Sahay, co-founder of the Bitcoin infrastructure firm Arch, said it remains too early to call the branch a failure from two blocks of data alone, since changes to Bitcoin’s rules depend on coordination across miners, developers and the wider ecosystem that can shift over weeks, not days.
The proposal itself still has room to run. The specification allows BIP-110 to lock in as late as block 963,648, with its restrictions taking effect one difficulty period after, at block 965,664. What has not happened, so far, is any sign of the miner support that would get it there. Bitcoin Core has not endorsed the proposal. No major exchange has listed the minority branch’s coins, which is what actually keeps them from functioning as money regardless of how many blocks the branch produces.
What does this mean for ordinary holders?
Most Bitcoin holders have nothing to actively track here. Their coins and transaction history stay on the chain that exchanges, wallets and payment processors already treat as real. The people who do need to pay attention are node operators enforcing BIP-110, whose software is now stuck on the slower branch, and anyone who tries to move Bitcoin across both chains at once.
That second group faces a “replay” risk. A transaction signed to spend coins that existed before block 961,632 is valid on both chains, since neither has changed the ownership since the split. If that signed transaction is deliberately resubmitted to BIP-110 nodes as well as the main network, it moves the same coins on both, which matters to anyone trying to sell or trade the two histories separately. It does not affect people who simply spend from a normal wallet through the normal network, and the branch is not currently mining any blocks that could include a replayed transaction regardless.
Holding coins from before the split does give a technical claim on both chains: the same private keys control matching balances on each. That resembles the way past Bitcoin forks such as Bitcoin Cash in 2017 also handed existing holders a claim on a new coin. But that doesn’t mean that claim is worth anything at this point. With no exchange listing and no active mining on the branch, there is currently nowhere to spend or trade the BIP-110 side of it.
Whether Roughnecks resumes mining the branch, whether a change to its computational puzzle attracts enough hardware to matter, and whether the editorial dispute settles the question of how BIP-110 reached this point at all, are the threads still open as the gap between the two chains keeps widening.
The Senate’s September 15 vote is a cloture motion that determines whether debate on the CLARITY Act even starts this year.
Republicans need at least seven Democratic votes; holdouts cite disputes over stablecoin rewards and bank competition.
Clearing cloture would leave roughly two weeks to merge rival committee texts and move the bill before midterm recess.
The U.S. Senate is scheduled to hold a procedural vote on the CLARITY Act on September 15.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed before the Senate adjourned on August 8. Cloture is a procedure for limiting debate. The vote will decide whether the Senate takes up the crypto market-structure bill this year.
The filing came after months of delay. The Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill in May, and lobbying for a floor vote intensified through the summer. Democrats made clear they would not support a vote before the recess, so Thune held off. He filed cloture in the early morning hours before senators left town, locking in September 15 as the first real test of whether the bill moves at all.
Where do the sixty votes come from?
The Senate returns September 14, with the cloture vote set for 2:15 p.m. Eastern the next day. Advancing the motion requires 60 votes. Republicans hold 53 Senate seats, so they cannot reach that threshold alone even if every senator participates. At least seven Democrats would need to join them if all Republicans supported the motion.
That outcome is not assured. Two Democrats supported the bill when the Senate Banking Committee advanced it in May. Still, they said negotiations remained fluid and did not promise to support the legislation on the floor.
Republican votes are not locked in either. Some lawmakers have raised objections involving banking competition and rewards paid on stablecoin balances. The coalition needed for the September vote may depend on both parties resolving issues that the cloture filing left open.
The House passed H.R. 3633 before the Senate began its own work. Its central purpose is to create a federal market structure for crypto assets and clarify when the Securities and Exchange Commission or Commodity Futures Trading Commission has authority.
That division affects how trading platforms, brokers and token issuers would register and operate. It could also shape which assets fall under securities rules and which trade within a commodities framework.
Senators can still seek changes if the chamber agrees to consider the bill. Any version that differs from the House measure would require additional action before it could reach the president.
Lawmakers have not published a final Senate text or a complete amendment package. Disagreements remain over stablecoin rewards, competition with banks, protections against illicit finance and the treatment of government officials’ crypto interests. The Senate Agriculture Committee passed a separate version of the bill that still needs to be merged with the Banking Committee’s text, and that merger has not started.
The calendar adds more pressure. The September 15 vote comes after a lengthy recess and close to the final stretch before the midterm elections. Even a successful cloture vote would leave limited time to debate, amend and pass the Clarity Act and reconcile with the House.
Chainalysis says violent crypto attacks extracted more than $30 million from holders in H1 2026.
Only 12 of 46 attempted kidnappings and home invasions succeeded, yet losses could top 2025’s $58 million record.
France leads global incident counts, underscoring how leaked data can link on-chain wealth to real-world targets.
Criminals extracted more than $30 million in crypto through violent attacks during the first half of 2026, according to research published by Chainalysis on August 6. The cases included kidnappings, home invasions and hostage situations to force holders to transfer cryptocurrency.
Chainalysis documented 46 incidents through late June, up from 40 compared to the same period last year. While the number of attacks rose, the success rate for the criminals behind them decreased. Only 12 of this year’s documented attempts resulted in a payment.
The findings shift part of the discussion surrounding crypto-security away from software and online scams. A wallet that can resist remote hacking can still become accessible when someone threatens its owner or a family member.
Most attacks did not produce a payment
Chainalysis calculated a 26% success rate for documented attacks in 2026. That compares with 49% in 2025 and 67% in 2024.
The demands were far larger than the amount criminals successfully obtained. Chainalysis connected approximately $107 million to ransom demands, blocked transfers and funds that authorities later recovered. Only $30 million was extracted successfully. Still, if this pace continues, 2026 is on track to surpass the $58 million stolen in 2025, which was itself a record year for violent crypto attacks.
While Chainalysis provides an important insight, its estimates are not complete global statistics. Violent attacks involving crypto often go unreported. Public records and media coverage vary widely between countries.
For example, France recorded 30 publicly known incidents during the first half of 2026. Chainalysis identified France, the United States, Brazil and Thailand as the countries with the highest cumulative incident counts since 2023.
In France, the pattern has spread beyond Paris to cities including Marseille, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Toulouse and Nantes. In June, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said authorities had documented more than 70 crypto-related violent incidents. The difference between those official records and Chainalysis’s incident count reflects the limits of relying on publicly available cases.
Chainalysis believes leaked personal information contributed to the increase. In a 2024 breach, a French tax official allegedly stole and sold records containing the names, addresses, holdings and phone numbers of wealthy crypto owners. That case became public in January 2026, the same month crypto tax service Waltio disclosed a separate breach involving about 50,000 users.
While the timing suggests that compromised data may have helped criminals identify targets, the Chainalysis report does not connect either of these data breaches to all of the French attacks.
Kidnappings and home invasions dominate
52% of the incidents in Chainalysis’ 2026 dataset were kidnappings. Home invasions accounted for 37%, up from 14% in 2025 under the firm’s classification method.
Criminals have also expanded who they target. Family members and other associates represented an estimated 25% to 30% of recent cases, compared with almost none in 2021. Most known victims were residents of the country where the attack occurred, which points to local identification and planning.
The movement of stolen funds showed different levels of financial sophistication. For instance, some attackers sent stolen assets directly to centralized exchanges. Others used laundering services and more complex transaction paths, suggesting possible links to organized criminal networks.
The rise in violent crypto attacks does not mean that ordinary holders face an immediate physical threat. The documented cases remain rare, and Chainalysis acknowledges that its dataset cannot capture every country equally.
However, the findings show how public claims about wealth and leaked identity records can connect an on-chain balance to a real person and address. For crypto holders, security therefore extends beyond wallet passwords or recovery phrases.
Chainalysis recommends limiting public disclosure of holdings and reducing links between on-chain activity and real-world identity. Appropriate custody and physical protections depend on an individual’s circumstances.
Meanwhile, law-enforcement agencies face a different challenge. They must combine conventional investigations with blockchain analysis before stolen funds reach services that can convert or obscure them.
Whether the number of attacks keeps rising will depend partly on how quickly authorities disrupt the groups buying compromised data. That fight does not stop at a border: a breach at a French tax agency can fuel attacks anywhere the stolen records reach, and the ransoms it produces move through exchanges and laundering networks with no fixed jurisdiction, which is exactly why no single country can stop them alone..
