AriseBank (AriseCoin)
A 2017 Texas ICO that marketed itself as the world's 'first decentralized bank' on the AriseCoin token, with false claims of FDIC insurance and a Visa partnership and a bogus '$600M raised'. The SEC halted it; the real fraud was ~$4M. CEO Jared Rice got 5 years.
Also known as: AriseBank, AriseCoin, Jared Rice
Summary
AriseBank (AriseCoin) was a Texas-based ICO that marketed itself as the world's "first decentralized bank" built on the AriseCoin token. Promoters, led by CEO Jared Rice Sr., made false claims — including FDIC insurance and a Visa partnership — and claimed to have raised $600 million toward a $1 billion goal. [1][2]
Outcome
The SEC obtained an emergency halt in early 2018; prosecutors said the actual fraud swindled investors of more than $4 million. Rice pleaded guilty to securities fraud and was sentenced in 2021 to five years in prison and ordered to pay about $4.26 million in restitution. [1][2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (2)
- AriseCoin creator sentenced to 5 years for $4 million fraud scheme — Markets Insider (DOJ)
- SEC halts AriseBank ICO (case background) — U.S. SEC
See also
World Liberty Financial (WLFI) — Justin Sun token freezeProjectsWLFI, a DeFi project linked to Donald Trump and his family, blacklisted/froze the wallet of major investor Justin Sun in Sept 2025 — ~540–595M unlocked WLFI tokens (~$107M) plus ~2.4B locked. Sun sued, alleging an undisclosed admin 'blacklist backdoor'; WLFI denied it and threatened a countersuit. The dispute is ongoing.
Gala Games exploitTokensOn May 20, 2024 an attacker abused a privileged minter account on the GALA token contract to mint 5 billion GALA (≈$200M+ nominal) and dumped ~600M of them for ~$22M of ETH before Gala froze the address. Gala Games called it an internal access-control failure; the attacker later returned the ~$22M.
This page was last updated on Jun 15, 2026. View revision history.
