Washington, D.C. — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced it filed charges against eight entities for fraudulently claiming to be CFTC-registered futures commission merchants (FCMs) and retail foreign exchange dealers (RFEDs). The entities, which all claim to be based in the Florida, are altux-fx-miner, AstroFXMinners, Avadigital-Miners.com, Globalbitasset, Gold Life Investment, Matchlessfxminer, PrimeCapitalTrade, and Trading-Extramining. Each complaint seeks an order directing the respondent to cease and desist from committing violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) and CFTC regulations.

“Today’s actions reflect the CFTC’s ongoing efforts to prevent fraud against customers, who rely on CFTC registration and National Futures Association membership as signs of legitimate participation in regulated markets”, said Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley. “The CFTC will continue to police fraudulent claims of registration, which harm customers and undermine faith in our regulated markets.”

Case Background

The complaints allege from approximately August 2023 to the present, the entities offered a variety of services to their customers in connection with trading a variety of products including futures, options, and forex as well as digital assets that are commodities in interstate commerce. The entities claimed to be CFTC-registered FCMs and RFEDs and members of the National Futures Association (NFA), but they are not registered with the CFTC. The eight entities claim to have an identical NFA identification number. 

The CFTC strongly urges the public to verify a company’s registration before committing funds. If an entity is unregistered, a customer should be wary of providing funds to that entity. A company’s registration status can be found using NFA BASIC. Additional information about verifying registration status and checking disciplinary history can be found on CFTC.gov.

The Division of Enforcement staff responsible for this case are Christopher Giglio, Elizabeth C. Brennan, David W. Oakland, Lara Turcik, Michael Geiser, K. Brent Tomer, Lenel Hickson, Jr., and Manal M. Sultan.