Bitqyck (Bitqy / BitqyM)
A Dallas-based operation that sold the Bitqy and BitqyM tokens. The SEC said founders Bruce Bise and Samuel Mendez defrauded over 13,000 investors in unregistered offerings; the DOJ said the venture raised ~$24M. Both pleaded guilty to tax evasion and received 50-month prison terms.
Also known as: Bitqyck, Bitqy, BitqyM, Bruce Bise, Samuel Mendez
Summary
Bitqyck, founded by Bruce Bise and Samuel Mendez, marketed two digital tokens — Bitqy and BitqyM — beginning in 2016. The SEC said the pair conducted fraudulent, unregistered securities offerings and operated an unregistered exchange. [1][2]
Scale and outcome
The SEC's 2019 complaint said Bitqyck raised more than $13 million from over 13,000 investors and that investors lost most of their money while the founders spent funds on personal expenses; Bitqyck settled, agreeing to penalties totaling about $10.1 million. The DOJ said the venture raised about $24 million; Bise and Mendez each pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 2021 and were sentenced in 2022 to 50 months in prison, jointly liable for $1.6 million in back taxes. [1][2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (2)
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.
