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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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.