14 DAY TRIAL // The man who at one point managed to amass seven percent of all the Bitcoin in the world will have to serve an 18-month prison sentence for orchestrating the most massive Ponzi scheme involving the digital currency.
Trendon T. Shavers, 33, of Texas, aka pirateat40, was the founder of Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BCS&T), a company that offered and sold Bitcoin investments online.
From September 2011 to September 2012, Shavers advertised his business on the official Bitcoin forum, where he provided users with the opportunity to invest in his fund and receive a seven percent weekly interest and an annualized interest rate of 3,641 percent.
BCS&T amassed investments of 146,000 Bitcoin
Users flocked at the opportunity to invest Bitcoin in Shavers' company and collect weekly payments as a bonus.
According to court documents, BCS&T received around 146,000 Bitcoin in investments, seven percent of all the Bitcoin found in circulation at that point in time.
The value of the fund was $807,380 in 2012 and would have been over $96 million today.
Shavers said in court that he hoped to play the Bitcoin market, selling and buying Bitcoin on specialized exchanges in order to win the weekly interest he owed users.
His business didn't go as planned, even if the average Bitcoin price rose from $5.5 at the time to over $650 today.
48 percent of victims lost their money
The Department of Justice said that at least 48 of 100 investors who participated in the BCS&T fund lost all or part of their Bitcoin.
Users filed complaints with the FBI's IC3, and Shavers was later arrested, pleading guilty on September 21, 2015. Shavers faced up to 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $5 million, or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.
On Thursday, a US judge sentenced Shavers to 18 months in jail on a count of securities fraud and ordered to pay $1,228,660.93 in forfeiture and $1,228,660.93 in restitution.
In September 2014, Shavers lost a separate civil action, where he was ordered to pay $40 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest, and a civil penalty of $150,000 related to BCS&T.