NY AG Settles with Uphold for $5M CredEarn Restitution

New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a settlement on April 29, 2026, with cryptocurrency platform Uphold, requiring the company to pay more than $5 million in restitution to customers harmed by its promotion of the now-defunct CredEarn product.

Between January 2019 and October 2020, Uphold marketed CredEarn, offered by Cred LLC, as a safe, savings-like investment on its platform and mobile app, promising attractive annual interest rates. According to the attorney general's office, Uphold failed to disclose that the yields stemmed from uncollateralized microloans funneled through a Chinese lender, MoKredit, to low-income video game players lacking credit histories. The office also found that Uphold relayed Cred's claim of comprehensive insurance coverage, though no such policies protected retail investors from digital asset losses at the time. Uphold promoted the product without registering as a broker or commodity broker-dealer under New York law.

More than 6,000 Uphold customers invested around $50 million in CredEarn, suffering losses exceeding $34 million when Cred filed for bankruptcy in November 2020 following lending losses that began in March 2020. The...