HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – State officials ordered BG Wealth Sharing and two women to stop soliciting investors, as federal investigators also move in on what some authorities describe as a cryptocurrency pyramid scheme.

BG Wealth Sharing has been operating in Hawaii with small initial investments, promises of wealth and incentives for recruiting new members, according to state regulators.

Joy Arcenas, who is from California, posted a video in January saying she was in Honolulu to do training for top leaders and members. Her Instagram includes posts of BG investment parties across the West, where people hear a story that started with $333.

“That $333 brought me to a level seven at $4,100 a day and now with $30,000 a month,” Arcenas said in the video.

Regulators said Arcenas also hosted Zoom webinars to help investors, many of whom appeared confused about cryptocurrency rules and how to cash in their investments.

Her internet posts indicate she hosted multiple meetings in Hawaii. A woman who emailed Hawaii News Now said the scheme is spreading in the Filipino American community across Hawaii and that a relative is influencing other members of her family, including an elderly mother, into investing.

The woman said many people lost their hard-earned money.

“It’s sad that something like this is actually continuing to happen,” said Randal Lee, a former judge and prosecutor.

Lee said it is not the first time pyramid schemes have targeted the Filipino community.

“You have to stop it immediately because it will grow like wildfire if you do not stop it,” Lee said.

State securities investment regulators served Arcenas, BG Wealth Sharing and a local woman named Cranci Ilima Luci Hoopai with a cease-and-desist order.

The order describes a meeting of 40 to 50 people at Nanakuli Library in April, where investigators said Arcenas claimed $500 was enough to earn benefits for a lifetime and people could be millionaires in 11 months if they worked hard to sign up and train new members.

Hoopai used testimonials from her own family to prove the investments were legitimate, according to the order.

“But the red flag should be that if you’re going to become a millionaire within 11 months, that’s totally unrealistic,” Lee said.

The order directs BG Wealth Sharing, Arcenas and Hoopai to stop soliciting investors. State regulators also ordered each to pay $50,000 for failing to register as securities brokers.

Federal authorities are also moving in on the mainland company. In recent days, the company’s website was seized under a federal warrant by the Department of Justice. There are also reports the company’s mainland bank accounts have been frozen.

“I love BG with all my might and protect BG with all your heart,” Arcenas said in a video.

Lee said investors who recruited friends and family are often warned by scammers that they could be prosecuted if they talk. He said that is not usually true. Investors who believed the scheme was legitimate would most likely be treated as victims.

The Iran Peace Deal Factor

On May 7, bitcoin reversed course, dipping below $80,000 to effectively erase gains made since Monday. As shown by the daily chart, the top cryptocurrency—which reached a multi-month high of $82,833 some 24 hours earlier—had been under pressure from bears since Wednesday afternoon.

After losing $1,000 during a slow descent from midday to midnight, bitcoin found temporary support at $80,700. While a pre-dawn rally lifted the price to $81,600, the momentum proved unsustainable. The subsequent sell-off was more aggressive, forcing the asset down to a $79,500 intraday low. As of 1 p.m. EDT, bitcoin has reclaimed some ground, currently hovering just below the $80,000 mark.

Bitcoin’s nearly 2% drop dragged its market capitalization below the $1.6 trillion mark, a marked decline from the approximately $1.66 trillion intraday peak reached on Wednesday. The drop helped pull the crypto economy’s market cap to $2.74 trillion, down from just over $2.8 trillion.

The cryptocurrency market’s retreat, which mirrored Wall Street’s, coincided with reports that Iran had rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to end the war. According to a post on X by Walter Bloomberg, a senior Iranian official, Mohsen Rezaei, said Tehran rejected the proposal—which calls on Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz—because it does not include reparations for war damage.

Iran’s rejection of the U.S. proposal neutralized the optimism sparked by earlier Axios reports that a deal was imminent. Concerns are mounting that a prolonged diplomatic stalemate will embolden Washington hawks, potentially sidelining proponents of diplomacy and nudging President Trump toward a direct military confrontation.

Despite the plunge, bitcoin was at the time of writing still up nearly 5% since the beginning of the month and more than 15% over a 30-day period. Meanwhile, bitcoin’s volatility over the 24-hour period saw $91 million in overleveraged long positions wiped out, compared with $12 million in shorts. Overall, the crypto economy saw nearly $270 million in long bets liquidated versus $90 million in shorts.

Speaking at CoinDesk’s Consensus Miami 2026, Burt said the country plans to do another airdrop of USDC stablecoin this year and to onboard merchants that can accept digital payments, CoinDesk reported Wednesday.

Bermuda announced its “on-chain economy” initiative in January and aims to build a payment infrastructure that will provide an alternative for small businesses that face high transaction fees on traditional card networks and banking rails as well as limited access to financial apps, according to the report.

Burt said Wednesday that even before the launch of this initiative, Bermuda was building a digital asset framework through its Digital Asset Business Act, and the Bermuda Monetary Authority was working with firms on issues related to digital assets.

“You cannot regulate out failure,” Burt said, per the report. “But you can put in place the items which allow responsible innovation to happen.”

In a Tuesday (May 5) press release issued by the government of Bermuda, announcing that Burt would participate in Consensus 2026, the government said Bermuda aims to be the leading jurisdiction for regulated digital assets and financial innovation.

Burt said in the release that Bermuda’s participation in the event “underscores our commitment to building the world’s first fully on-chain national economy.”

“Since announcing this initiative at Davos in January, we have been working closely with leading digital asset companies, including Circle and Coinbase, to help us execute this vision,” Burt said.

When Burt, Circle and Coinbase announced the initiative in a January press release, they said it would build on an existing partnership in which the government of Bermuda and the two companies helped Bermudian businesses begin accepting digital payments and financial institutions expand their use of stablecoins and tokenized finance.

They said that under the initiative launched in January, the government and the two digital finance companies will help government agencies begin piloting stablecoin-based payments, financial institutions integrate tokenization tools, and residents increase their digital literacy.

Bermuda announced in 2019 that it had begun accepting U.S. dollar-backed digital currencies for the payment of government taxes, fees and services.