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Regulators in Nevada issued a cease-and-desist order dated Oct. 22 against the custodian, saying that Fortress’ liquidity position is “wholly inadequate to meet customer obligations.”
The state’s Financial Institutions Division found that Fortress owed millions to clients, according to the order. The firm admitted it couldn’t meet customer withdrawals and failed to produce basic financial documentation, including account reconciliations and recent monthly statements.
“I learned after assuming the position of Chief Executive Officer that the Trust was experiencing severe financial difficulties and challenges related to events that occurred prior to assuming my role,” current CEO Anthony Botticella said in a signed statement included in the filing. “These pre-existing issues materially affected the Trust’s ability to continue as an ongoing viable entity.” Botticella became CEO in December 2023, the declaration said.

According to the order, Fortress owes clients more than $8 million in fiat currency and $4 million in crypto at current prices. However, the custodian has less than $200,000 in cash and only around $1 million in crypto on hand, the filing showed.

Fortress was unable to provide financial statements for July, August or September, the Nevada regulator said.
In 2023, Ripple backed out of the deal to buy Fortress after Fortune published a story saying that Fortress lost millions in a hack. Then-CEO Scott Purcell told Bloomberg a third-party service was breached, but his company hadn’t been directly hacked.
111 sats \ 4 replies \ @optimism 7h
After the breach, Fortress reached out to BitGo. BitGo strongly advised Fortress to disclose what happened immediately. Fortress did not do that. Eventually, Fortress decided to sell to Ripple. This is a great outcome because Ripple was able to make all clients whole and will hopefully help Fortress with resources to correct the security weaknesses which led to this event. Ripple is a good actor here and should be applauded.
How can there be not enough of anything if Ripple made everyone whole? Were they just kidding?
Edit: ohwait, they were kidding. i missed the backing out part.
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I believe the Ripple acquisition fell through:
The cancelled deal followed hot on the heels of the news that up to $15m of Fortress Trust customer’s digital assets were stolen. The theft was later blamed on Retool, a third party vendor that was victim to a phishing attack. Block works
Also here:
And here:
It's weird because the acquisition announcement is written in the past tense "has acquired" and it is what comes up first in most searches. It was dated sept 8 2023, but the cancellation came within a week.
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185 sats \ 2 replies \ @optimism 6h
Thanks. I just realized that. Funny because I also don't remember hearing before that they backed out; just that they acquired. But then the only reason I saw it in the first place was because everyone was shouting at Mr. Swan on my feed back then.
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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @Scoresby OP 6h
Yeah! The canceled deal was strangely not taken up by the usual sources. Even now in search results the acuisition announcement is more likely to come up than the news that it fell through.
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102 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism 5h
AI fixes this. Maybe. Haha
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Swan used to use them
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hack or exit scam, could we have a poll?
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Ah, a hack, what a surprise (not)
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