Bitcoin Daily: FTC Settles With Accused Crypto Pyramid Schemers; BTC Transactions Spike To Two-Year High

The US Federal Trade Commission announced that the promoters of recruitment-based cryptocurrency schemes have been permanently banned from operating or participating in any multi-level marketing program.

The FTC obtained a court order in March 2018 against Thomas Dluca, Eric Pinkston and Louis Gatto, with the regulator alleging that the trio falsely claimed that participants could earn large returns by paying cryptocurrency to enroll in schemes marketed under the names Bitcoin Funding Team and My7Network.

A fourth defendant, Scott Chandler, was accused of promoting Bitcoin Funding Team and another deceptive cryptocurrency scheme, Jetcoin, which promised participants a fixed rate of return.

As part of their proposed settlements with the FTC, Dluca will pay $453,932, and Chandler will pay $31,000. Pinkston also agreed to a $461,035 judgment.

In other news, the bitcoin network saw a boost in the value of transaction output, which brought it to its highest level in two years.

Cryptovest reported that the surge could be the result of a significant backlog of BTC transactions on Thursday (Aug. 22), with as much as 20,000 pending transactions in the mempool. Another factor could be a dusting attack, which is when multiple small transactions are sent out, to map out wallets and addresses.

But analysts believe the activity was primarily due to change volume, and centered on one specific wallet address that was extremely active on Aug. 22.

And a hacker from the U.K. will have to pay back more than $1.1 million (£900,000) in cryptocurrency after carrying out attacks on several companies including Uber, Sainsbury’s and Groupon.

Grant West from Kent, England, has been ordered to pay the money back after a two-year police investigation called “Operation Draba.” West was also able to hack into Argos, Nectar, Labdrokes, Coral Betting and supermarket chain Asda, as well as the British Cardiovascular Society.

The forfeited cryptocurrency will be sold and victims are set to receive compensation, according to Hard Fork.