Rathnakishore Giri, a 31-year-old investment manager from New Albany, Ohio, was sentenced to nine years in federal prison and three years of supervised release for running a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of about $10 million. The sentence closes a criminal case built around false promises of Bitcoin derivatives trading, principal protection and guaranteed returns.
Giri pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in October 2024. Prosecutors said he promoted himself as an expert cryptocurrency trader, promised lucrative returns with no risk to principal and used funds from new investors to repay earlier investors rather than executing the trading strategy he marketed.
Guaranteed Returns Became the Core Fraud Signal
The scheme followed a familiar pattern. Investors were told Giri could generate high returns from Bitcoin derivatives while preserving their principal, but the structure depended on new investor money being used to support prior payouts, the defining feature of a Ponzi operation.
The criminal case followed earlier civil action by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC’s 2022 complaint alleged that Giri controlled NBD Eidetic Capital and SR Private Equity, solicited more than $12 million and at least 10 Bitcoin from more than 150 customers, and misappropriated customer funds for personal spending and Ponzi-style distributions.
The CFTC also alleged that customer funds were commingled with personal bank and trading accounts, while no digital-asset trading accounts were established in the name of the purported investment funds. That detail matters because client-asset segregation and verifiable trading records are central controls in any managed crypto strategy.
Enforcement Pressure Rises as Crypto Fraud Losses Grow
The case lands inside a broader enforcement environment shaped by record crypto-fraud losses. The FBI said Americans filed 181,565 cryptocurrency-related complaints in 2025, with losses totaling more than $11 billion, while total cyber-enabled crime losses approached $21 billion.
Older investors remain especially exposed. The FBI reported that Americans over 60 lost about $7.7 billion to cyber-enabled crime in 2025, up 37% from 2024, reinforcing the investor-protection urgency around guaranteed-return crypto pitches.
The sentence also reinforces the value of coordinated civil and criminal enforcement. The CFTC’s civil allegations and the Justice Department’s criminal prosecution together show how regulators can pursue both market-integrity remedies and prison exposure when crypto investment schemes misuse client funds.
The diligence bar is now higher. Actively managed crypto strategies need documented custody segregation, transparent trade records, audited fund flows and clear governance over client assets before any capital is committed.
