In a major move underscoring the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s intensified scrutiny of crypto, Unicoin — a digital asset investment platform — is now in the crosshairs of federal regulators. On May 20, the SEC filed a lawsuit accusing the company and several top executives of orchestrating a deceptive scheme that raised over $100 million from unsuspecting investors.
The SEC’s complaint, filed in a federal court in Manhattan, alleges that Unicoin, along with CEO Alex Konanykhin, board member Silvina Moschini, and former Chief Investment Officer Alex Dominguez, lured more than 5,000 investors with grandiose promises and misleading claims. At the heart of the allegations is the assertion that Unicoin sold certificates supposedly entitling holders to future tokens and equity — assets that were, according to the SEC, misrepresented from the start.
According to Mark Cave, associate director in the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, the case paints a picture of calculated deception. “Since 2022, the defendants have capitalized on crypto hype to push a narrative that their tokens were backed by a massive global real estate portfolio,” Cave said. “But the truth was far less impressive — the properties were worth a fraction of the claimed billions, and the bulk of the sales were largely fictional.”
The SEC also claims Unicoin greatly overstated its financial health. While the company publicly boasted about having a financial runway stretching decades into the future, internal records reportedly show it was operating with just a few months of funds — sometimes as little as four months.
Adding to the list of misrepresentations, the SEC alleges Unicoin misled the public about the scale of its fundraising. While it claimed to have sold over $3 billion worth of token rights certificates, actual sales reportedly totaled just $110 million. Additionally, promotional materials suggested that the investment offerings were registered with the SEC — a claim the regulator strongly refutes.
Notably, the SEC also brought charges against Unicoin’s general counsel, Richard Devlin, who has since agreed to pay a civil penalty of $37,500. However, he neither admitted nor denied the allegations, a common resolution in SEC enforcement cases.
Unicoin, Konanykhin, and Moschini have yet to respond publicly to the SEC’s lawsuit, while Dominguez has not been reached for comment. Still, this isn’t the first hint that Unicoin was on the SEC’s radar. Back in December, the company reportedly received a Wells notice — an indication that enforcement action was likely. Former FOX Business journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that the SEC offered to meet with Unicoin for settlement talks in April, but the company declined. Konanykhin reportedly stated the terms proposed by regulators were “unacceptable” and vowed to fight the charges in court.
This legal clash could have ripple effects across the crypto investment landscape. It serves as another high-profile reminder that regulators are aggressively pursuing companies that blur the line between hype and fraud in the digital asset space. For investors, it’s a cautionary tale: the more glittering the promise, the more critical it becomes to examine the fine print.
As the case progresses, the crypto industry will be watching closely — not just to see what happens to Unicoin, but to understand how the SEC plans to police similar ventures that continue to spring up in the still-maturing world of blockchain finance.
