CEO of Blockchain Startup Charged With $1M Fraud Over Fake Deals With Sports Teams, Tech Firms

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The co-founder and CEO of Amalgam Capital Ventures, Jeremy Jordan-Jones, was arrested Wednesday and charged with defrauding investors out of more than $1 million by lying about high-value corporate partnerships and nonexistent blockchain products, according to federal prosecutors and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Jordan-Jones, 33, allegedly duped investors — including a venture capital firm that invested $500,000 — by claiming Amalgam had deals with major entities like the Golden State Warriors, an English Premier League soccer club, and top payment processors. He claimed the company was on track to process over $1 billion in monthly transactions and rake in tens of millions in revenue.

But prosecutors say none of those claims were true.

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Instead, Amalgam had no customers, products, or contracts, and investor money went toward luxury cars, designer clothes, hotels, art, entertainment, and large cash withdrawals. Jordan-Jones is accused of also falsifying bank records to obtain credit and sending a doctored term sheet to unfreeze a corporate card account.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said Jordan-Jones exploited blockchain hype. “In reality, Jordan-Jones’s company was a sham,” Clayton said in a statement.

The SEC filed a parallel civil action focused on the venture capital firm’s investment in Amalgam’s so-called payments platform, Zeo. The agency says Jordan-Jones pitched the firm while knowing Amalgam was financially unstable and had no viable product or intellectual property.

Jordan-Jones appeared in Manhattan federal court Wednesday and was released on a $3.5 million personal recognizance bond. His attorney declined to comment.

Prosecutors also allege Amalgam couldn’t pay employees and that multiple vendors canceled contracts due to nonpayment. One former executive is suing in state court for nearly $49,000 in unpaid wages. A separate investor won a default judgment in California after claiming Jordan-Jones misled him into investing $150,000 in a cannabis-related crypto token.

Jordan-Jones also has a pending 2016 criminal case in Massachusetts involving check forgery and identity theft. A warrant was issued for his arrest in 2017 after he failed to appear in court, according to the docket.

The criminal case is U.S. v. Jordan-Jones, case number 1:25-cr-00232, and the SEC case is SEC v. Jordan-Jones, case number 1:25-cv-04297, both in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.