December 18, 2025
Patricio G. Balona/Imagn Images
Danh C. Vo, 37, is accused of running a bitcoin mining company in Philadelphia that defrauded investors of more than $48.5 million. Above, a sign for a bitcoin ATM is shown in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
The owner of a former bitcoin mining company in Philadelphia allegedly stole more than $48.5 million from investors in a scheme that promised "passive income" for supporters of the firm's cryptocurrency network, a complaint filed Wednesday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says.
Danh C. Vo, 37, launched VBit Technologies Corp. in 2018 as a platform for investors to hold stakes in the company's computing power used to mine bitcoin. The cryptocurrency assets are created by networks of computer rigs that solve complex puzzles, allowing the entire bitcoin network to function securely while rewarding miners for their blockchain contributions.
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Vo marketed his company as a "turnkey solution" for investors to profit from bitcoin mining without the responsibility and technical savvy needed to operate rigs. In most instances, instead of directly selling equipment to investors, VBit offered tiered "hosting agreements" that let investors choose how much processing power they wanted the company to operate on their behalf for bitcoin mining.
Between December 2018 and February 2022, Vo raised $95.6 million from about 6,400 VBit investors, SEC investigators said. The company pooled its computing power with third parties to mine about 425.2 bitcoin during that time, an amount now worth $36 million.
Some investors received returns, but others suffered substantial losses and were misled by Vo about Vbit's operations and finances, the SEC complaint says.
Vbit allegedly operated only a small fraction of the mining rigs that it claimed to be running based on the number of hosting agreements the company secured. Despite lacking the computing capacity and equipment to fulfill contracts, Vo continued to take on new investors, SEC investigators said.
Vo allegedly transferred millions of dollars into personal bank accounts, using most of the money to gamble on other cryptocurrencies or funnel investors' assets to family and friends. Vo fled the country to Vietnam in November 2021, about a month after he learned about the SEC investigation.
To cover up his activities, Vo allegedly gave investors access to online accounts that reflected false bitcoin balances. Some of the investors were able to make withdrawals from the accounts, but most used the balances to pay down their hosting agreements. Vbit did not have enough money to back up the amounts shown in all of its investors' accounts, and Vo had sole control over the company's finances, investigators said.
In January 2022, Vo announced he had created a successor company, Advanced Mining Group, to purchase Vbit for $105 million. He called the new venture an "Asian-based" crypto company with a global scale and described the sale of Vbit as a way to give him "peace of mind and freedom to focus on my health," the complaint says. Vbit investors were frozen out of their accounts and prevented from making withdrawals.
Investigators said Vbit and Advanced Mining Group were never registered with the SEC as required by law.
Vo is charged with multiple violations of SEC regulations. The agency is seeking a jury trial and a court order for Vo to return money that was misappropriated from investors. Vo's family and friends also are named as relief defendants for the money they received. The SEC also seeks an order for Vo to pay a civil penalty and to be barred from issuing securities.
SEC officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Vo is still residing in Vietnam or elsewhere.
The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, where Vbit Technologies Corp. was incorporated. The company is now defunct, investigators said.
