- Green United, which claimed to be a crypto mining investment, has been hit with several chargers by the SEC
- The agency accuses the company, its founder and promoter of being a securities scam that swindled $18 million from investors
- Green United never conducted any mining and covered up its illegal activities by sending worthless tokens
Green United, a Utah-based company that offers cryptocurrency mining services and equipment, has been accused of operating an $18 million securities scam by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that never delivered what it offered. Green United LLC has been sued alongside its founder Wright Thurston, promoter Kristoffer Krohn, and two other associated companies, True North United Investments, LLC and Block Brothers, LLC, with the SEC alleging that the whole thing was a fiction and they never intended to keep the promises they made.
“Green Blockchain” Never Existed
According to the SEC’s complaint, the four defendants conspired to sell investment products called “Green Boxes” and “Green Nodes” between at least April 2018 and December 2022, raising over $18 million in the process. They are alleged to have made false statements regarding these products, claiming that they would mine a cryptocurrency called GREEN on the “Green Blockchain”, using their expertise and resources to operate the Green Boxes and Green Nodes efficiently, and distribute GREEN tokens earned through the mining operation to investors.
Alongside this, the four also claimed that they planned to develop the Green Blockchain to establish a “public global decentralized power grid,” which would increase the value of the GREEN token. Based on these assertions, the SEC says, investors reasonably expected to profit from their investment due to the operators’ entrepreneurial and managerial efforts.
Fake GREEN Tokens Were Sent to Investors
In reality however, no mining of GREEN tokens was done because it was not a mineable asset and the Green blockchain did not exist. Instead, it was discovered that the GREEN tokens were not created until after the initial sale of Green Boxes to investors, but Green United periodically deposited GREEN tokens into investors’ wallets to keep up the appearance of a successful mining operation. However, the SEC believes that these deposits were simply sent to the wallets at Thurston’s direction. Additionally, despite claims made at the time, the GREEN token had no realizable value as it was not trading in a secondary market.
The SEC concludes that Green United and Thurston used a significant portion of the funds raised from investors to finance the company’s operations and promotional activities, with the latter paying commissions to Krohn, who acted as an “unregistered securities broker” to promote and sell Green Boxes. In his role, Krohn made numerous misrepresentations to investors about the present value of the GREEN token and the returns on investment that investors could expect.
The regulator is seeking disgorgement of the $18 million taken by the company, unspecified damages and for Thurston and Kohn to be banned from “participating in the
issuance, purchase, offer, or sale of any security, including any crypto asset security.”
