Bitcoin Savings and Trust
An early Bitcoin Ponzi (2011–2012) run by Trendon Shavers ('pirateat40'), who promised up to 7% weekly returns and took in ~764,000 BTC. The SEC won a $40M+ judgment, and in 2016 Shavers was sentenced to 18 months — the first U.S. federal securities-fraud case involving Bitcoin.
Also known as: Bitcoin Savings and Trust, BTCST, Trendon Shavers, pirateat40
Summary
Bitcoin Savings and Trust (BTCST) was an online investment scheme operated from 2011 to 2012 by Texan Trendon Shavers under the handle "pirateat40." He solicited investors on Bitcoin forums and chat rooms, promising up to 7% returns per week from purported Bitcoin arbitrage trading. [1][2]
Reality and outcome
The SEC established that Shavers ran a Ponzi scheme — paying earlier investors with later investors' bitcoin and diverting funds for personal use (including a BMW and Las Vegas trips). At its peak BTCST held about 764,000 BTC (roughly 7% of all bitcoin then in circulation, ~$4.5M at the time). In 2014 a federal court ordered more than $40 million in disgorgement and penalties; in 2016 Shavers was sentenced to 18 months in prison — the first U.S. federal securities-fraud prosecution involving Bitcoin. [1][2][3]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (3)
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.
