The dream of making a quick and easy fortune in cryptocurrency took yet another hit with the arrest of Rodney Burton, a.k.a. “Bitcoin Rodney,” a relentless promoter who sold himself as a high-tech financial guru and was often seen out with celebrity pals including Jamie Foxx, Rick Ross, Marlon Wayans, and Tiffany Haddish.
Burton, whose 2021 “Reinvent Yourself With Crypto” event in Miami also included appearances by singer Akon, FUBU founder and Shark Tank regular Daymond John, and convicted fraudster Jordan Belfort (whose memoir The Wolf of Wall Street inspired the Martin Scorsese film), was taken into custody in Florida and is awaiting transfer to Maryland, where he’s being charged.
The criminal complaint that was filed rests on an affidavit by a special agent of the IRS who found probable cause to believe that one of the crypto operations that Burton was involved in was an “unlicensed money transmitting business.” Burton is accused, in short, of illegal transfer of currency — but the broader accusations in the legal filing paint a picture of a pyramid scheme operated by several people, including Burton.
The statement describes Burton’s role in advising people to invest in HyperVerse (previously called “Hyperfund”), a purported decentralized finance crypto investment platform established in 2020, alongside two other HyperVerse promoters unnamed in the document (“Individual 1” and “Individual 2”).
The IRS special agent alleges that this entity made “fraudulent promotional presentations to investors and potential investors.” Touted as the “world’s most sustainable passive rewards program,” HyperVerse sold investor “memberships” that promised double or triple returns — up to one-percent daily “rewards,” paid for in part using “large-scale crypto mining operations.” But it had no mining capability, and, according to the charging document, the investors “were paid with funds collected from more recent investors.” The fund collapsed in mid-2023, costing consumers approximately $1.3 billion.
