On April 29, 2026, the Office of the New York Attorney General announced that it has secured more than $5 million from the cryptocurrency platform Uphold HQ, Inc. (Uphold) for allegedly misleading investors and promoting a fraudulent cryptocurrency investment scheme purportedly orchestrated by Cred, LLC (Cred) and it’s Chief Executive Officer.
According to the OAG, an investigation found that Uphold misleadingly promoted and offered Cred’s investment product, CredEarn, to its customers, in violation of New York law.
Uphold purportedly advertised CredEarn as a reliable savings product, when allegedly, Cred was making risky loans to borrowers in China with no credit histories. When Cred “collapsed” in 2020, thousands of Uphold’s customers across the world who had invested in CredEarn lost millions of dollars, according to the OAG.
“When crypto companies break the law and mislead investors, the consequences can be devastating to New Yorkers’ livelihoods,” said Attorney General James. AG James also stated that “Uphold promoted risky investments and misled its customers to believe they were safe … Investors should be able to trust the industry advice they receive, and my office will always work to ensure bad actors are held accountable for endangering their customers’ financial security.”
According to the OAG, Uphold is a cryptocurrency platform that offers users the ability to buy, sell, and trade digital assets. The OAG states that “from January 2019 through October 2020, Uphold offered CredEarn on its platform and mobile app. CredEarn promised significant annual interest payments to customers who invested their cryptocurrency in the company.”
In advertising CredEarn, Uphold is alleged to have misleadingly promoted it as a safe, reliable savings product. In reality, according to the OAG, Cred generated interest through risky micro-loans to video game players in China who had low monthly incomes, no credit histories, and no access to credit through traditional Chinese financial institutions.
In promoting CredEarn, Uphold also purportedly stated that Cred was covered by “comprehensive insurance,” but no insurance that would protect retail investors from investment losses of digital assets is alleged to have existed in the industry.
The OAG’s investigation also purportedly found that Uphold was illegally promoting CredEarn without registering as either a broker or commodity broker-dealer.
Starting in March 2020, Cred incurred is alleged to have suffered “significant losses due to its risky lending practices and mismanagement,” and declared bankruptcy in late 2020, “resulting in investor losses of millions of dollars.”
As a result of the settlement, Uphold will pay $5 million to purportedly harmed investors – “more than five times the amount it earned in fees it collected” – and change its policies to better protect users from third-party investment schemes, says the OAG.
“All payments Uphold receives from Cred’s bankruptcy proceedings, in which it is owed $545,189, will also be paid to customers who were harmed,” the OAG states.
Investors will also receive an email from Uphold informing them that funds will be distributed to their accounts.
As indicated above, Uphold must “maintain and improve its due diligence policies before partnering with or recommending a third-party investment product.” “As part of the settlement, Uphold will also register as a broker with the OAG.”
In July 2025, the New York Attorney General took action to stop an alleged crypto scam targeting Russian-speaking New Yorkers. In January 2025, Attorney General James became the first regulator to provide notice of litigation by depositing a nonfungible token (NFT) into the wallets scammers used to steal the victims’ cryptocurrency. In June 2024, Attorney General James sued a cryptocurrency trading company for allegedly engaging in an illegal pyramid scheme that defrauded hundreds of thousands of investors worldwide, including over 11,000 New Yorkers, of over a billion dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency.
