Bitcoin Daily: Investors Hit Crypto Firms With Class-Action Lawsuit; South Korea Fast Tracks Digital Currency Pilot

Cryptocurrency

Eleven class-action lawsuits targeting crypto exchanges and cryptocurrency issuers were filed Friday (April 4) in Manhattan’s U.S. District Court.

The plaintiffs, who are investors with the companies, allege the companies sold unregistered securities that totaled in the billions, according to published reports.

In other crypto news, other investors who fell victim to a purported digital currency scam claim a Wells Fargo subsidiary did not take notice of the activities of a staffer who was allegedly one of the main actors in the scheme, CoinDesk reported.

They allege that Wells Fargo Advisors did not look into the activities of one individual, who purportedly bilked investors while working as a financial adviser for the firm. The investors have filed a lawsuit against the company.

As per the report, the individual served as a Wells Fargo Advisors financial adviser for over five years, and he departed in May of last year, per his profile on LinkedIn. The individual, a previous staffer at another financial services firm, and a certified general surgeon made a scheme seemingly as a way to join funds to trade digital currencies.

After raising over $1 million, the group expanded into a limited partnership and widened its efforts by bringing in $33 million from investors throughout the country. The group allegedly invested only $10 million into digital currencies, and the remainder reportedly went to the founders.

In other news, the Bank of Korea (BOK) has rolled out a new experimental effort for a central bank digital currency (CBDC), CoinDesk reported. Officials from the central bank have left their wait-and-see approach behind and have moved the organization into a test program to rate the legal and technical impacts of having a digital equivalent take the place of physical cash.

The central bank said it had taken another look at the proposal after it noticed that other developed countries were progressing with their own cryptocurrencies quicker than first foreseen. One official told The Korea Times, per the report, in part, “The BOK also decided to remain proactive in the rapid shift in payment environments here and abroad, so we are going to set up the CBDC pilot system and check technical and legal issues surrounding its introduction here.”