The US regulator SEC has accused Stefan Qin, the founder of hedge fund Virgil Capital which specializes in crypto arbitrage, of fraud.
December 24, 2020 | AtoZ Markets – The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused Stephen Qin of fraudulent exchange arbitrage on cryptocurrency and non-return of funds to investors.
SEC accuses Stefan Qin of fraud involving the Virgil Sigma
Qin, who is 23 is the founder of Virgil Sigma in New York and VQR Multistrategy in the Cayman Islands. In the summer of 2020, Qin told investors who were trying to recoup their investments totaling $3.5 million that their funds would be transferred to VQR Multistrategy. According to the SEC's claim, the funds were never transferred.
In December, Qin asked fund trader Antonio Hallac to help him withdraw $1.7 million from VQR, claiming he had borrowed money from Chinese moneylenders to invest in Virgil Sigma.
Also, the fund manager is accused of making changes to trackers to track investments on 39 cryptocurrency trading platforms in 2019.
The defendant is currently in South Korea and is willing to cooperate with the SEC.
“Stephen Qin has a full set of facts and is committed to ensuring that no investor gets hurt,” lawyers told Reuters.
The regulator seeks to return the invested funds and the declared profit to investors. The SEC also requires that Qing be prohibited from participating in the sale, issue, purchase, or offer of any securities, except for his personal account.
Recall that on December 23, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, and Chris Larsen. According to the department, the company was selling unregistered securities in the form of XRP tokens.
On the same day, Bitwise Asset Management announced the exclusion of the XRP token from its flagship Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund. Mike Novogratz's Galaxy Digital cryptocurrency bank suspended XRP token trading on December 24.
Brad Garlinghouse said that the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple is a terrible precedent for the cryptocurrency industry, which could turn into trouble for other cryptocurrency companies.
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