An Australian man who spruiked a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme which fleeced investors of more than $3.5 billion has escaped jail time and has been placed on a three-year good behaviour bond.

John Bigatton from Carss Park in New South Wales was sentenced on Friday in the Sydney District Court after pleading guilty earlier this year to one charge of providing financial services without a licence in relation to his role promoting open-source cryptocurrency platform BitConnect.

In his role as Australian national representative of BitConnect from August 2017 to January 2018, Bigatton appeared at a number of seminars and made two social media posts extolling the apparent potential of the high-yield investment program.

The system which was eventually revealed to be a classic Ponzi scheme, with the money from new investors being used to pay out earlier participants.

At the sentencing hearing on Friday, Bigatton was released without sentence on the condition he pay a security of $100 and comply with a good behaviour period of three years, running until mid-July 2027.

This means if Bigatton is not charged with another crime in the next three years, he will not have any sentence against his name for his role with BitConnect.

Bigatton was facing a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment, but in sentencing, Judge Robert Newlinds said he had a “prior exemplary character” and “led a life of full honest employment, successfully raised a family, and has contributed significantly to the community”.

Because of this, the judge found Bigatton’s offending was a “misstep, albeit a significant one, by an otherwise good man who will not reoffend”.


BitConnect had claimed its technology could generate significant returns for investors. Image: Supplied

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), which referred the case to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, welcomed the conviction.

“This matter sends a clear message to Australians — that ASIC has and will act when unlicensed operators try to take advantage of Australian investors,” ASIC deputy chair Sarah Court said.

“ASIC is committed to taking action against the unlawful promotion of high-risk digital assets to protect Australian investors.”

BitConnect’s investment program, known as its Lending Platform, required participants to buy its cryptocurrency coin BCC and then invest or “loan” them for fixed terms in exchange for promised high interest rates.

The company claimed to have proprietary technology that could generate significant and guaranteed returns for investors by trading their money on cryptocurrency exchanges.

BitConnect promised its investors an average daily compounding interest of 1 per cent.

Once these investors put their money into the scheme, they had no control over it and could not withdraw it until the end of the lending period.

Global ramifications

Before it was shut down, the scheme stole about $3.6 billion ($US2.4 billion) from 4,000 investors across 95 countries.

The platform was shuttered in early 2018 after the value of its coin declined by more than 90 per cent following the Texas State Securities Board issuing a cease and desist against it and labelling it a Ponzi scheme.

In 2022 BitConnect’s founder, Indian national Satish Kumbhani, was indicted in San Diego, and the following year a US court ordered 800 victims of the scheme to be awarded $25 million ($US17 million) in compensation.

But thousands more victims of the scam will not receive any of their money back.

A key tactic of the con involved the use of high-profile individuals spruiking the economic potential of the scheme to bring in unknowing victims.

Bigatton was one of these promoters in Australia, and promoted the Lending Platform in two social media posts and four seminars, along with face-to-face meetings with investors.

He also appeared at BitConnect’s annual ceremony in 2017, saying its investment scheme was “like the stock market, on steroids, times 10”.

At the seminars, Bigatton told attendees the BitConnect coin would increase in value by at least $US1,000, and words to the effect that “BitConnect is better than any term deposit out there”.

He pleaded guilty to providing financial product advice without holding an Australian Financial Services licence or authorisation to provide financial services about BitConnect.

In late 2020 ASIC banned Bigatton from providing financial services for seven years over his role promoting the Ponzi scheme.

While Bigatton escaped jail time, a US-based promoter of BitConnect was sentenced to 38 months in prison in September 2021.

Glenn Arcaro pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy charges in relation to his role with BitConnect and was also ordered to pay back $36 million ($US24 million) to scammed Lending Platform investors.