SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, California (KOLO) – A former South Lake Tahoe man has been found guilty in a series of scams involving cryptocurrency.

The Department of Justice says 53-year-old Daniel Chartraw also used sham business ventures and false investment guarantees causing substantial financial losses to numerous victims nationwide.

The DOJ says that, between March 2021 and February 2022, Chartraw and an associate controlled multiple companies. They say that he and several other individuals acting on his behalf represented that one of his companies was a web-based cryptocurrency trading company that guaranteed high returns with no risk.

At various points, he also claimed his other company, TDA Global, was engaged in supplying jet fuel to airlines or operated its own cryptocurrency trading platform.

“This verdict sends a clear message: individuals who exploit the trust of others and steal through deception will be held accountable,” said U.S. Attorney Grant. “The defendant lied to investors and caused serious financial and emotional harm. Our office will continue to pursue those who use emerging technologies, including cryptocurrency, as vehicles for fraud.”

Chartraw communicated with potential and existing investors through phone calls, texts, emails and virtual meetings using Teams and Zoom. The DOJ says that, although he was directing operations, he frequently used aliases and told associates he needed to conceal his identity due to a prior fraud conviction.

The DOJ says he repeatedly accessed his company’s bank account despite not being a signatory, and used it to withdraw cash, make purchases, and transfer investor funds to accounts he controlled.

Authorities say he also used fabricated account statements, false assurances of growth, and repeated misrepresentations to persuade victims to invest additional funds. When investors attempted to recover their money or questioned delays, Chartraw provided excuses, deflected responsibility or stopped communication altogether.

The total loss to investors was nearly $1 million.

Chartraw will be sentenced in September and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for each count

Developers in the Crosshairs

Lummis made her case via a statement shared on June 22, singling out the legal exposure faced by the people who write code for decentralized finance ( DeFi) tools, wallets and other onchain services. She has repeatedly argued that the absence of clear rules leaves engineers guessing whether routine work could later be treated as a crime, a fear that has lingered over the industry since a wave of enforcement actions in prior years. She added:

“Software developers should not need an army of lawyers to know if their code is legal. The Clarity Act ends that absurdity.”

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, known as the CLARITY Act, would split oversight of digital assets between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and set out when a token should be treated as a security or a commodity.

It also carries language to shield developers and infrastructure providers who never take custody of customer funds from being classified as money transmitters, a designation that carries heavy licensing and surveillance obligations.

A Bill Months in the Making

The legislation has been advancing in stages, with the House passing its version in July 2025 by a 294-134 margin, and on May 14, 2026, the Senate Banking Committee advanced an amended bill in a bipartisan 15-9 vote. The measure has since been placed on the Senate calendar, making it formally eligible for floor consideration.

Not everyone is convinced, though, and Senator Elizabeth Warren has routinely opposed the bill during the committee markup, offering 44 amendments, none of which passed, and warning that the framework could blow up the economy. Lummis, by contrast, has cast the stakes in national terms, cautioning that inaction could cede digital-asset leadership to China and Europe.

The senator has also put a clock on it, warning that missing the current window could push comprehensive crypto legislation to 2030. She has said customers may lack guaranteed rights to their holdings if a digital-asset exchange goes bankrupt, leaving them stuck in creditor proceedings rather than recovering their assets directly.

Industry and National Security Support

Outside Congress, the bill has drawn an unusually broad coalition. A group of 160 national security, intelligence and law enforcement veterans signed a letter to Senate leaders backing the measure, while more than 1,200 tech companies pressed the Senate to pass it quickly. Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse has thrown the company’s weight behind the bill, saying “this is the moment” for U.S. crypto rules.

Supporters argue that regulatory certainty would keep developers and startups onshore rather than pushing them toward jurisdictions with clearer frameworks, such as the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime. Without it, they say, the U.S. risks exporting its most promising builders along with the jobs and tax revenue they generate.

The next hurdle is a full Senate vote, where the bill must clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold before any reconciliation with the House version and a signature from President Donald Trump. With the legislative calendar tightening, Lummis and her allies are betting that the prospect of renewed prosecutions and the risk of falling behind global rivals will be enough to move undecided senators. For developers watching from the sidelines, the outcome will determine whether writing code remains a legal gray area or finally gets a clear rulebook.

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The Consumer Technology Association, which represents more than 1,200 technology companies, urged Senate leaders to advance the CLARITY Act as…

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The Consumer Technology Association, which represents more than 1,200 technology companies, urged Senate leaders to advance the CLARITY Act as…

Small businesses have taken big financial hits over the past 12-plus months.

New tariffs have raised costs to small businesses that depend on importing products. The Iran war has caused the price of gas and diesel to skyrocket along with the cost of other goods small businesses need.

As a result, inflation is at 4.2 percent, decreasing consumer purchasing power, which lowers the essential sales that small businesses need to survive.

Now, the U.S. Senate is about to launch another attack on small businesses: the CLARITY Act. 

For more than 26 years I have represented small business interests at the state and national levels.

One of the key ingredients to start and grow a small business is access to capital. Entrepreneurs either bring their own capital to the business or obtain a loan from a bank, credit union or Community Development Financial Institution, which serves low-income and underserved communities.

Traditional financial institutions make their loans from the deposits of customers, including small businesses. Community Development institutions are partially funded by these same financial institutions.

Now, the cryptocurrency companies want to drain banks, credit unions and CDFIs of the funds they lend to small businesses to start and grow.

Instead of putting money into local financial institutions with community-based loan officers making decisions about small business lending, crypto companies tout putting locally grown funds into private digital wallets. The benefits to small businesses, they claim, are faster and less expensive financial transactions (i.e., buying and selling) especially in the “global” economy.

More than 200 crypto companies say their crypto platforms, where the money in digital wallets is housed, will enable small business lending and borrowing.

No need for local banks. Everyone with a crypto account can make loans to other entrepreneurs around the world who they will never meet. Likewise, decisions about obtaining a small business crypto loan will be made by those global digital wallet holders, probably with advice from artificial intelligence programs.