Goliath was sued by the SEC and CFTC on the same day. The $400 million scam came to light, and the founder has pleaded guilty
Author: Shenchao TechFlow Original title: SEC and CFTC sued Goliath on the same day: The $400 million crypto Ponzi scam came to light, and there are no regulatory blind spots. Shenchao Guide: A company called Goliath Ventures used the story of “putting money into crypto liquidity pools to earn processing fees” to take about 400 million US dollars from more than 1,300 ordinary people, and the founder himself took 51 million dollars to buy luxury cars. What's even more worrisome is that the founder pleaded guilty two months ago, but the money he put in is unlikely to be recovered. The SEC and CFTC took action on the same day, and the signal is clear: the blind spots in regulation of the wild path platform, which is supported by a high level of interest, are disappearing. On Tuesday, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) each filed civil lawsuits against Goliath Ventures and its founder Christopher Delgado, pointing to the same $400 million crypto Ponzi scheme. The two regulators took action against the same entity on the same day. This collaborative rhythm itself is more worthy of the attention of ordinary investors than the case itself. The “crypto liquidity pool” is a cover: $400 million is not in the pool; 51 million goes into the founder's pocket. According to Goliath, the money will go into the crypto liquidity pool, which relies on fees paid by traders to generate a monthly return of 3% to 10%, and the capital is protected. The SEC gave the exact opposite version in the lawsuit: the company did not put capital or crypto assets into any liquidity pool, but instead used the money of new investors and old investors to fill in the previous person's earnings, and falsified account balances and performance data. Where did the money go? The SEC alleges that Delgado misappropriated at least $51 million for personal expenses. According to the CFTC, about 1,600 customers have invested at least 397 million US dollars in total. The direction is “Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions,” and there is also no real transaction support. There is a slight difference in the statistical caliber of the two institutions (SEC focuses on the securities side, CFTC focuses on the commodity side), but they point to the same pool of funds that have been diverted. Pay back the cost of 3% to 10% per month. For readers, this rhetoric collapsed two months ago. For readers, the most important thing to remember about this case is not “someone else has been scammed,” but it unravels the recipe for typical scams: high interest rates, capital protection, and new rebates. The SEC alleges that Goliath paid commissions to sales agents that recruit investors and relied on people to get people to snowball. The day when the snowball couldn't roll came so fast. According to the SEC, by November 2025, the company could no longer rely on new capital to cover monthly payments, and dividends were immediately stopped and the capital chain broke down. It only lasted less than a year from the “commitment to double digits of the month” to a complete shutdown. The lifeblood of this type of platform has never been its ability to make money, but whether it can continue to attract new money. The founder has already pleaded guilty, and the 1,300 investors may not be able to recover nearly $250 million more discouraging than the scam is the end. As early as June 30 of this year, Delgado pleaded guilty to the US Department of Justice on three counts of conspiracy to commit telecom fraud, telecom fraud, and money laundering. The Justice Department revealed at the time that at least $400 million of money flowed into Goliath, and Delgado himself acknowledged causing investors to lose at least $250 million and agreed to seize properties, vehicles, luxury goods, bank accounts, and crypto accounts linked to the scam. In other words, people have been arrested at the criminal level, and things are also being confiscated, but investors have very little hope of getting their capital back. Delgado's “step-by-step settlement” with the SEC is yet to be approved by the court, which will ultimately determine the amount to be recovered, pre-judgment interest, and civil fines; the CFTC is separately seeking compensation, fines, and market bans. They really need to be paid back; there is also a lengthy execution process ahead. The SEC and CFTC took action on the same day to push new platforms into the crossfire of regulation and put this case back into a larger picture. The real new signal is a change in enforcement methods. In the past, crypto platforms often took advantage of “is this a security or a commodity” and hid back and forth between the SEC and CFTC. This time, the two companies filed separate lawsuits on the same day and each managed one section (SEC for securities and CFTC for commodities), which is tantamount to blocking this path: whether you package it as a liquidity pool or trade and financial management, both sides are watching. For the average investor, this means at least two things. The first is that small and medium-sized platforms that rely on “high interest rates and insurance to attract people” are moving from blind spots in supervision to cross-fire zones,...
