BlockFi
A U.S. crypto lender that, in February 2022, paid $100M to settle SEC and 32-state charges that its BlockFi Interest Accounts were unregistered securities — a first-of-its-kind action. It later froze withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 amid FTX exposure.
Also known as: BlockFi, BlockFi Interest Account, BIA
Summary
BlockFi was a New Jersey-based crypto financial-services company best known for its BlockFi Interest Accounts (BIAs), which let retail customers earn yield by lending it their crypto. [1]
SEC settlement
In February 2022 the SEC charged BlockFi with failing to register the offers and sales of BIAs and with violating the Investment Company Act — described as a first-of-its-kind action. BlockFi agreed to pay a $50 million SEC penalty plus $50 million to 32 states (a combined $100 million), then the largest SEC penalty against a crypto-asset issuer, and to stop offering BIAs to new U.S. customers. [1]
Collapse
In November 2022, following the collapse of FTX (with which it had a credit relationship) and exposure to Three Arrows Capital, BlockFi paused withdrawals and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing 100,000+ creditors and $1B–$10B in liabilities. [2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (2)
See also
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.
HEX / PulseChain (Richard Heart)ProjectsCrypto projects (HEX, PulseChain, PulseX) created by Richard Heart (Richard Schueler). In July 2023 the U.S. SEC sued him for offering unregistered securities that raised $1B+ and for allegedly misappropriating ~$12M for luxury goods (including a 555-carat diamond). A court dismissed the case in 2024 for lack of U.S. jurisdiction; there was no finding of wrongdoing and Heart denies the allegations.
This page was last updated on Jun 15, 2026. View revision history.
