CluCoin Founder Pleads Guilty to Stealing $1.1M of Investor Funds for Online Gambling

Austin Michael Taylor, 40, of Miami, Florida faces up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud.

The founder of a Miami-based cryptocurrency project has pleaded guilty to stealing over $1 million from investors and spending the money at online casinos, according to court documents filed in Florida last week.

Austin Michael Taylor, 40, of Maryland, founded CluCoin in the spring of 2021 and marketed the project to his “large Internet following” as a streamer, with the stated goal of using the funds raised to fund charities.

After CluCoin’s initial coin offering in May 2021, the project’s trading volume and value declined “precipitously,” according to court documents. This prompted Taylor to steer CluCoin “away from its original charity focus.”

Throughout 2022, while Taylor was managing CluCoin and making promises to investors about its activities — including the purported development of a metaverse-based video game called “Xenia” — his lawyers said, Taylor was “secretly succumbing to a gambling addiction.”

In total, Taylor transferred $1.14 million worth of investor funds to online casinos including Stake.com, his lawyers said.

In January 2023, Taylor publicly admitted to using investor funds for online gambling and voluntarily ceded control of the project to his business associates.

Taylor pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud on Aug. 15. As part of his plea agreement, Taylor agreed to forfeit $1.14 million in ill-gotten gains for victim restitution.

Taylor is set to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Jacqueline Becerra of the Southern District of Florida on Oct. 31 at 10:00 a.m. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.