Odaily Planet Daily News: A Florida man pleaded guilty on Friday to masterminding a $55 million blockchain investment fraud scheme. According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Michael Glaspie, 72, pleaded guilty to a charge of wire fraud after he lured more than 10,000 people to invest in a blockchain company called CoinDeal, claiming that investors would benefit from an acquisition involving ViRSE. ViRSE is a company allegedly owned and operated by Neil Suresh Chandran of Las Vegas, whose "Metaverse" company developed its own cryptocurrency. Chandran owns companies including Free Vi Lab, Studio Vi Inc., ViDelivery Inc., ViMarket Inc. and Skalex USA Inc. However, when the CoinDeal transaction failed, Glaspie transferred investor funds to Chandran. In order to entice investors to put their money into CoinDeal, Glaspie made false promises that he would repay investors' funds at an annual interest rate of 7% within three years if CoinDeal's returns failed to materialize, the press release stated. In fact, Glaspie knew he had no way to repay these debts. Glaspie also falsely claimed that he never used CoinDeal investors' funds to pay his own salary, when in fact he misappropriated nearly $2.5 million of victims' investments for personal purposes, including trading cryptocurrencies, paying employees' salaries, and purchasing life insurance for family members. A federal district court judge will sentence Glaspie on June 16, and he could be sentenced to 20 years in prison. (WOWT)