The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued 38 entities on Aug. 27, alleging they submitted false Forms ADV between 2025 and 2026 to present themselves as legitimate investment advisers.

The SEC filed 38 separate civil complaints in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. The regulator alleges that several defendants likely operated overseas and used official public filings to gain credibility with U.S. retail investors.

The allegations have not been proven in court. The SEC did not report how much investors transferred to the entities, identify confirmed victims or disclose total losses.

SEC complaints identify repeated filing patterns

The complaints allege that defendants listed Colorado business addresses where they had no physical presence. Some supplied disconnected telephone numbers or numbers belonging to unrelated businesses.

Many filings contained identical or nearly identical information. According to one complaint, purported funds commonly reported either $78.96 million or $48.96 million in assets, 89 or 33 investors and minimum investments of either $50,000 or $5,000.

The entities also listed matching ownership structures. Those structures reportedly attributed 10% ownership to the adviser or related parties, 90% to foreign investors and 50% to funds of funds. The categories could overlap.

The SEC said several filings claimed that private-fund financial statements had been reviewed by one of two independent accounting firms. Investigators could not find either auditor in federal or state accountancy registries.

Fake adviser status allegedly supported investor scams

An exempt reporting adviser, or ERA, is not an SEC-registered investment adviser. ERAs generally advise only venture capital funds or private funds with less than $150 million under management in the U.S.

They must submit limited information through Form ADV, but the SEC does not approve their experience, qualifications or business claims before publishing those filings. The complaints allege the defendants exploited that process because submissions became publicly searchable without prior approval.

Some related websites displayed certificates falsely stating that the entities had received “SEC RIA permission,” according to the regulator’s alert. The certificates used genuine filing and registration numbers to appear authentic.

Several defendants adopted names referring to crypto, exchanges, emerging technology or financial education. They include CryptoOrbit, Pinnacle Crypto Exchange, Web3 University, Axivon Exchange and Future Finance Academy. However, the SEC did not characterize every defendant as a crypto business.

Foreign access and missing records raised concerns

The SEC said IP addresses used to access its filing system were traced to foreign jurisdictions in several cases. It did not identify every country or allege that all 38 entities operated outside the U.S.

Commission attorneys requested records supporting the firms’ reported assets, investors, employees, auditors and fund operations. The defendants allegedly failed to provide the requested material.

In the case against Abrdn Canada Limited, SEC staff mailed a records demand to its stated Denver address in April. The correspondence was returned as undeliverable. Calls reached a disconnected number, while a later email received no response.

The complaint also alleges the entity claimed to operate as a commodity pool operator or trading adviser without a corresponding CFTC or National Futures Association registration.

Courts will decide penalties and filing restrictions

The SEC charged the defendants under Sections 204(a) and 207 of the Investment Advisers Act. Those provisions govern adviser records and false statements made in required filings.

The agency seeks permanent injunctions, civil penalties and orders preventing the entities from submitting future Forms ADV as exempt reporting advisers. The amount of any penalty would be determined by the court.

The SEC directed FINRA to remove the 38 filings from the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure database. The FBI assisted through Operation Level Up, an initiative that identifies and contacts potential victims of investment fraud.

Investors should not treat a Form ADV appearance as proof of SEC registration. The regulator advised users to verify a firm’s status independently and avoid transferring money, cryptocurrency or personal information when an ERA approaches individual investors directly.

Comparable impersonation tactics have also appeared outside the U.S. In related coverage, fraudsters used regulator names and counterfeit documents to target crypto users during Europe’s MiCA transition.

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Ledger rejected claims that it had been hacked after OneKey’s Anzen security team reproduced a transaction replacement flaw against an outdated version of Ledger’s Ethereum application.

OneKey founder Yishi Wang said on Aug. 27 that researchers completed the attack against Ethereum app 1.22.1 in a laboratory. Ledger confirmed the underlying vulnerability but said it had already patched the affected application before OneKey published its demonstration.

Ledger Ethereum flaw broke the trusted display guarantee

The vulnerability involved communication between a Ledger device and its connected host. Ledger applications receive instructions called Application Protocol Data Unit commands, or APDUs, from wallet software, webpages or other interfaces.

An affected application could accept a second APDU command while the user was reviewing an earlier operation on the device screen. The new command could overwrite signing parameters stored in shared memory without updating the displayed information.

Under that scenario, the user could review transaction A and approve it while the application generated a signature covering transaction B. The device would not warn the user that the underlying information had changed.

Ledger classified the issue as a time-of-check to time-of-use race condition. Its bulletin said the flaw defeated the trusted-display protection that hardware wallets use to let customers verify amounts, addresses and contract actions before signing.

The issue did not reveal seed phrases or extract private keys from the secure element. Instead, it could cause the protected key to sign parameters different from those shown to the user.

Exploitation required a compromised connection

An attacker needed control of communications between the Ledger application and its host. Ledger listed malware, a compromised wallet application, or a hostile webpage with WebHID or WebUSB access as possible routes.

The attack could not be performed remotely against an unplugged device. A user also had to approve the transaction while the malicious software manipulated its pending signing context.

Ledger said the defect was located in the input and output handling of its Secure SDK, not the device operating system or firmware. Applications compiled with affected SDK releases depended on their own state checks to reject commands arriving during an active review.

This means exposure was application-specific. An application remained protected if every asynchronous command entry point properly checked its state, even when built using the affected SDK.

Ledger disputes whether the test counts as a hack

Wang described the laboratory result by saying, “we hacked Ledger.” He also said the company fixed the problem in Ethereum app 1.22.3.

Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet disputed that description. He said “reproducing an already-patched bug is not ‘hacking Ledger’” and characterized OneKey’s work as a laboratory exercise against an older application.

The version history supports a more precise timeline. Ethereum app 1.22.2, released Aug. 13, was the first application update containing state checks designed to stop the documented transaction substitution path.

Ledger then released Secure SDK 26.6.1 on Aug. 21. That update blocks interleaved commands before application code receives them. Applications were subsequently rebuilt using the corrected SDK.

Ledger now recommends Ethereum app 1.22.3 or later because the newer release contains the broader SDK protection and addresses another transaction-display flaw. OneKey was therefore correct that 1.22.3 is protected, but the first application-level fix appeared in 1.22.2.

As crypto.news previously reported, Ledger had already said its Ethereum signing vulnerability was fixed before the public disclosure.

Users must update applications through Ledger Live

Ledger said it found no evidence that attackers exploited LSB 023 against customers. No cryptocurrency losses have been publicly linked to this specific issue.

Users should open Ledger Live, install the latest device applications and verify the Ethereum app version on the hardware wallet. Updating firmware alone does not replace applications built with an affected SDK.

Third-party developers must also review their state handling and rebuild applications with Secure SDK 26.6.1 or later. Ledger said the weakness was introduced in August 2025 and affected SDK versions through 26.6.0.

The disclosure follows other hardware wallet security fixes. In related coverage, BitBox patched two flaws affecting firmware installation and Bitcoin address handling, also without reporting confirmed exploitation.

Unstoppable Domains has abandoned plans to seek ICANN recognition for several of its original web3 domain extensions and has begun refunding customers who bought names after the company committed to pursuing the 2026 application round.

Unstoppable Domains founder Matthew Gould said on Aug. 26 that the company did not submit applications for its web3 top-level domains after concluding that ICANN compliance, application and potential bidding costs would exceed the sales it expected from the extensions.

The decision reverses a commitment made only six months earlier. On Feb. 17, Unstoppable said it intended to apply for ICANN recognition for its original .ZIL, .Crypto, .Wallet, .NFT, .Bitcoin and .DAO extensions, which would have allowed approved domains to eventually operate through the conventional Domain Name System.

“The cost of taking web3 domains through icann in both compliance and application and bidding is higher than what we believe we’d recover in sales,” Gould wrote. He said refunding buyers affected by the company’s ICANN plans made more business sense than going through with the applications.

Timing left little room for another change in course. ICANN opened its 2026 new generic top-level domain application window on April 30 and closed submissions at 23:59 UTC on Aug. 12, receiving more than 1,600 primary applications. Evaluation fees were generally due by Aug. 19, while Reveal Day will disclose the strings that passed administrative checks no later than nine weeks after the application window closed.

Unstoppable Domains refunds follow missed ICANN applications

Customers were informed of the decision by email, according to Gould, who said the company had not applied and was issuing refunds under the terms communicated to users over the previous 24 hours.

No complete public list of affected extensions or detailed refund terms accompanied his statement. Some holders said they received information on Aug. 25 identifying domains involved in the process.

The change also follows years in which ICANN compatibility formed part of Unstoppable’s pitch for several web3 naming products. Crypto.news previously reported in June 2024 that Unstoppable and Blockchain.com planned to register the .blockchain extension through ICANN, with the proposed domain designed to work across both conventional websites and blockchain applications if approved.

Under that plan, .blockchain holders would have gained access to standard DNS functions, including website resolution and email, while retaining blockchain-based uses such as human-readable crypto addresses.

Similar plans were attached to other partnerships. Reddit’s r/CryptoCurrency launched .MOON web3 domains with Unstoppable for a community of about 8.8 million users, offering the names as onchain identifiers that could be used with hundreds of blockchain applications and wallets.

Unstoppable had also worked with Brave on blockchain domains. The browser launched .brave onchain domains for its more than 85 million users, with the two companies exploring an ICANN application that could eventually allow .brave addresses to operate across both web browsers and blockchain networks.

Web3 domain sales did not justify the cost

Gould tied the latest decision to demand for web3-only naming products, saying sales data did not support running several generic extensions through the ICANN process.

“I think a lot of people have an inflated sense of the web3 market since the 2021 crypto nft bubble. It is small. It is niche,” he wrote, adding that Unstoppable did not believe the market could support multiple generic TLD applications during the current round.

According to Gould, the company based the decision on its own sales figures instead of expectations about future demand.

Public revenue figures from Ethereum Name Service also show registration income well below levels recorded during the 2021 and 2022 crypto market cycle. ENS generated about $315,000 in registration and renewal fees during the latest 30-day period cited in the source material and roughly $4.04 million over the preceding 12 months. Cumulative fees since 2019 stood at about $112.5 million, while its strongest quarter, in the second quarter of 2022, produced about $20.6 million.

Unstoppable had already been withdrawing several partner extensions from possible ICANN applications before the latest decision. Its support material listed dozens of partner strings whose operators chose not to proceed, resulting in refund periods during September and December 2025 and another window from Feb. 16 to March 2, 2026.

Extensions covered by earlier decisions included .pengu, .pudgy, .sonic and .ltc. Some had originally been promoted with plans for eventual ICANN applications, including .AGI, developed with the 0G Foundation.

The company’s roots in blockchain naming go back years. In 2019, Unstoppable prepared to auction .zil blockchain domains under its early model for user-owned naming assets, before .crypto and a longer list of extensions became part of its product lineup.

Domain holders are seeking wider refunds

Some customers are now disputing which purchases qualify for repayment, arguing that they retained domains because Unstoppable had said it would seek ICANN recognition.

A holder posting under the name 00.x described the reversal as a “complete betrayal of the vision that’s been spoken about for years” and called for refunds across every Unstoppable domain that will not proceed to ICANN. The holder later told Gould that offers for some domains had been rejected because of expectations surrounding the ICANN process.

Jeffrey Peterson separately asked whether buyers who purchased domains as early as 2021 could receive refunds.

Another holder using the name fastfwd.crypto called for repayment on all extensions that Unstoppable had decided not to submit, arguing that customers could not properly assess earlier refund offers before seeing which applications the company ultimately filed.

Gould said the decision does not remove the blockchain-based assets themselves. Existing web3 domains will continue operating onchain and can still be used for crypto transactions under their current functionality.

“The web3 domains will remain as onchain assets for crypto transactions as they have always been,” he wrote.

Unstoppable is still working on ICANN applications for partners

Although its own original extensions are not proceeding, Unstoppable remains involved in the ICANN process as a service provider for other organizations.

On Aug. 18, Gould said the company was working with Telegram on its .gram top-level domain application. Unstoppable had also said in 2024 that it was supporting more than 19 web3 companies preparing for the 2026 round after securing ICANN registrar accreditation.

By March, Gould said conventional DNS domains represented more than 90% of the company’s business, while web3-only domains had been associated heavily with the 2021 crypto boom and had not reached mainstream use.

Changes around the company have become visible elsewhere. Unstoppable’s February page covering web3 refunds now redirects users to a login screen, while unstoppabledomains.com redirects to unstoppable.ai. Its X profile currently describes the business as an “agentic workspace & IDE that keeps your team on the frontier.”

Ethereum Name Service has taken a different route for the 2026 ICANN round. ENS tokenholders approved a restructured ENS Foundation on Aug. 11 with authority to seek recognition and stewardship of the .ens top-level domain.

ENS is not pursuing .eth because ICANN reserves the three-letter string as an ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code. ENS Labs has said its .ens application is intended to protect the ENS brand, with any eventual delegation unable to occur before 2028.

The two naming companies have previously contested intellectual property issues in the blockchain domain sector. ENS challenged Unstoppable in 2023 to open patents covering blockchain naming technology, continuing a dispute between two of the industry’s longest-running web3 domain providers.

Charles Schwab says it plans to broaden the set of cryptocurrencies offered on its direct crypto trading platform by adding Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and Chainlink (LINK) in the coming months. The update would extend Schwab Crypto’s initial rollout, which focused on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Schwab Crypto began bringing direct retail crypto trading to customers in May, with access via Schwab’s website, mobile app and thinkorswim. For now, Schwab has not provided additional details on which other digital assets it may consider beyond the three newly announced tokens, nor has it shared a specific schedule for each addition.

Key takeaways

• Schwab Crypto will add Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and Chainlink (LINK) to its direct trading offering in the coming months.
• The expansion builds on Schwab Crypto’s May start, which initially supported direct trading in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).
• Schwab charges 75 basis points (0.75%) of the trade’s dollar value for each crypto transaction.
• Schwab Crypto is available in all US states except New York and Louisiana, and it is not offered in US territories or internationally.

Schwab Crypto grows beyond BTC and ETH

Schwab’s move signals a more multi-asset approach to institutional-style crypto access for retail investors. Schwab Crypto started rolling out direct crypto trading to retail clients in May, pairing crypto positions with traditional investment capabilities through Schwab’s existing platforms.

While Schwab has outlined the addition of SOL, AVAX and LINK, it has kept its longer-term roadmap unclear. The company did not specify what other tokens are under consideration or provide a detailed timeline beyond the three assets it has named.

For market participants, the practical question is how quickly Schwab can operationalize additional assets inside a regulated brokerage framework—especially as demand and product expectations evolve among retail investors used to multi-asset trading interfaces.

Pricing and availability for US customers

Schwab Crypto uses a straightforward fee model: a charge of 75 basis points, or 0.75%, on the dollar value of each crypto trade. The service is offered through Charles Schwab Premier Bank, with Charles Schwab & Co. handling certain operational functions on the bank’s behalf.

Geographic restrictions remain part of the offering. Schwab Crypto is available in all US states except New York and Louisiana, and it is not available in US territories or internationally. That footprint matters for traders and advisers evaluating whether Schwab’s expansion can meaningfully broaden access in the near term, particularly in states where other venues may dominate.

Broader push into new trading products

Schwab’s crypto expansion comes as the firm pursues other trading-product initiatives outside of digital assets. In June, The Wall Street Journal reported that Schwab plans to offer prediction contracts tied to the S&P 500 index in partnership with Cboe Global Markets. Those contracts would let clients bet whether the S&P 500 closes above or below a specified level, according to the report, and were described as expected to launch within months.

Unlike some prediction-market platforms that allow a broader set of event-based outcomes, Schwab’s planned offering—based on the reporting—would begin with index outcomes rather than opening immediately to a wider menu of contracts.

Taken together, Schwab’s actions suggest the brokerage is actively expanding its product suite for retail customers while staying inside tightly defined, exchange-partnered or brokerage-regulated structures. That approach can be relevant to how investors think about legitimacy, operational safeguards and compliance—areas that heavily influence adoption for both crypto trading and adjacent market products.

What Schwab’s scale signals for adoption

Schwab’s capacity to add assets may also be influenced by the size of its customer base. As of July 31, Schwab reported holding $13.04 trillion in client assets across 39.9 million active brokerage accounts. In results reported for the second quarter, Schwab also said it delivered record net revenue of $7.1 billion and net income of $2.8 billion.

While those figures are not direct measures of crypto activity, they provide context for how quickly a brokerage can iterate across product lines once a new offering clears operational hurdles. If Schwab Crypto’s early rollout meets internal performance thresholds, expanding from two benchmark tokens to a broader set of networks and use cases could deepen engagement from investors looking for exposure beyond BTC and ETH.

At the same time, Schwab’s decision to announce three specific additions—without committing to a detailed schedule for further tokens—highlights the balancing act between customer demand and the pace of compliance, custody, trading infrastructure and liquidity management.

What to watch next

Investors should keep an eye on when SOL, AVAX and LINK become available in Schwab’s direct trading menus, and whether Schwab provides additional milestones for any further digital-asset expansion. The next signals will likely come from Schwab’s own platform updates and any follow-on guidance that clarifies timing and the scope of future token listings.

The British government said on Aug. 27 that it plans to give the Bank of England a new statutory objective supporting innovation in payment systems, stablecoins and other forms of digital money.

The secondary objective would remain subordinate to the Bank’s primary responsibility for protecting financial stability. HM Treasury plans to implement the change through amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

Bank of England stablecoin objective remains secondary

The proposed mandate would extend an existing innovation objective covering central counterparties and central securities depositories to the Bank’s regulation of systemic payment systems. That remit includes systems using digital settlement assets such as stablecoins.

The government said the Bank would not have to support an innovation when doing so could undermine financial stability. The change therefore adds a formal duty to consider innovation without weakening the central bank’s existing risk controls.

City Minister Lucy Rigby said tokenization and distributed ledger technology “have the potential to transform financial markets.” She said the objective would help the Bank support digital finance while maintaining its financial stability mandate.

Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden welcomed the proposal. She said it would support innovation “without compromising on financial stability,” according to the government’s announcement.

The Bank would report annually to Parliament on its work under the objective. This requirement would give lawmakers a recurring opportunity to examine whether payments regulation is adapting to new technology.

Systemic stablecoin rules have already become less restrictive

The proposal follows the Bank of England’s June policy statement covering sterling-denominated systemic stablecoins. The framework applies to stablecoins that HM Treasury formally recognizes as systemically important.

The Bank removed planned temporary limits of £20,000 for individuals and £10 million for most businesses. It replaced those restrictions with an initial £40 billion issuance limit for each systemic stablecoin.

As previously reported, the Bank of England dropped individual stablecoin limits and introduced a £40 billion issuance guardrail. The change followed industry warnings that individual limits would restrict payment use.

Under the revised policy, issuers can hold as much as 70% of their backing reserves in short-term British government debt. The remaining 30% would generally be held as non-interest-bearing deposits at the central bank.

Those rules concern systemic stablecoins. The Financial Conduct Authority will supervise other qualifying stablecoin issuers, trading platforms, custodians and crypto intermediaries under the wider framework.

FCA licensing deadlines will arrive before implementation

The FCA finalized its main crypto rules on June 30. The framework covers financial resilience, market integrity, stablecoin reserves, redemption and consumer standards.

Crypto firms can apply for authorization from Sept. 30, 2026, through Feb. 28, 2027. The mandatory regime is scheduled to begin on Oct. 25, 2027, according to the FCA’s rules.

Existing anti-money-laundering registrations will not automatically become full authorizations. Trading platforms, custodians, stablecoin issuers and staking intermediaries must submit applications covering their regulated activities.

In related coverage, the FCA established a February 2027 application deadline for crypto firms. Companies that miss the application window may lose access to transitional arrangements.

Parliament will decide whether the mandate becomes law

The new objective has not yet taken effect. The government expects to introduce amendments when the Financial Services and Markets Bill returns to the House of Lords on Sept. 7 and 9.

Parliament can approve, reject or modify those amendments. The final statutory wording will determine which payment systems fall within the objective and how the annual reporting requirement operates.

The policy also adds a competitive response to U.S. stablecoin regulation. The U.S. GENIUS Act established a federal payment stablecoin framework in 2025, increasing pressure on Britain to provide issuers with a predictable route to market.

U.S. and British regulators have already expanded stablecoin discussions. As crypto.news reported, officials from both countries backed one-to-one reserves and closer cross-border coordination, although those discussions did not create binding shared rules.