The Securities and Exchange Commission has secured a $5,518,902 default judgment against the operators of NanoBit, a fraudulent cryptocurrency trading platform. A federal court ordered the payment after the defendants ignored the regulatory agency’s civil charges.
The ruling targets NanoBit Limited alongside three associated entities: Radiant Horizons, Sweet Karma, and Zhao Deli. Two individuals, Jiajie Liu and Hua Zhao, were also named in the penalty. NanoBit alone is responsible for nearly $1.8 million of the combined total, which includes disgorgement, civil penalties, and pre-judgment interest.
Key Details
- The Scheme: Fraudsters impersonated financial professionals on WhatsApp, gaining the trust of retail investors before pitching fake initial coin offerings (ICOs).
- The False Claims: The group told victims their affiliate, “NanobitUS Securities,” was an SEC-registered broker.
- The Funds: The platform never executed a single trade. Over $2 million of investor funds were routed directly to bank accounts in Hong Kong and various crypto wallets.
- The Timeline: The active fraud ran from October 2023 through June 2024.
The case reached this conclusion because the defense completely stalled. The defendants failed to respond to a September 2025 motion filed by the SEC. Consequently, the judge approved the default judgment.
The court document permanently bans the defendants from violating the antifraud provisions of both the Securities Act and the Exchange Act.
What This Means for the SEC’s Crypto Strategy
This final judgment closes the loop on a specific regulatory milestone. When the SEC initially filed these charges in September 2024 alongside a parallel case against CoinW6, it marked the agency’s first-ever enforcement action specifically targeting relationship-based “pig butchering” scams.
Historically, regulatory enforcement in the digital asset sector focused on technical fraud, such as unregistered securities offerings or algorithmic stablecoin collapses. Pig butchering requires a different approach. Fraudsters spend weeks or months building personal relationships with targets on messaging apps before introducing the financial element.
Following the finalization of the $5.5 million penalty, the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy updated its public guidance. The office explicitly warned retail investors to avoid unsolicited WhatsApp investment groups. Regulators are urging consumers to manually verify broker registration status through the federal Investor.gov database before transferring any assets.