Florida man accuses Denver crypto school of fake crypto exchange

An investor claims that a fraudulent online trading school in downtown Denver has partnered with a fake cryptocurrency exchange in Cherry Creek to rob him of $860,000.

Brian Firestone of Florida says he was approached in December by a man named John Smith with the Alpha Stock Investment Training Center. Smith offered to teach Firestone how to trade cryptocurrencies and gifted him $500 to begin, according to the Florida man.

The Alpha Stock Investment Training Center, which listed an address of 1660 Lincoln St. on its now-defunct website, advised people to trade crypto through CoinBridge Partners, a company at 950 S. Cherry St. that claims to have raised $10 million from 600 investors last year.

“CoinBridge is really an entirely fake exchange,” Firestone wrote in a June 11 lawsuit.

Alpha Stock Investment engaged in what’s called signal trading, in which “professors” message Firestone and others with a recommended trade at a set time, say 5 p.m. “Students” click to accept the trade and their CoinBridge account buys or sells a cryptocurrency accordingly.

Firestone says the initial $500 he was given soon multiplied to $55,000. So, in January, he invested $50,000. Within weeks, his CoinBridge account balance was $2 million, he says.

“Professor, I must thank you,” he texted Smith on Feb. 8, according to his lawsuit. “My results were outstanding. Thank you for letting me in this trade today. This is so exciting!”

But a bad trade then sent his account balance free-falling to just $12,000. Undeterred, he decided to invest an additional $800,000 at Alpha Stock Investment’s urging: $470,000 in cash and $330,000 borrowed from the school, he recalls. His account balance soon rocketed to $24.5 million.

Then, on March 9 came the signal for his biggest trade yet: an investment in the cryptocurrency USDT, which is pegged to the U.S. dollar. But he couldn’t click to accept it.

“I can’t close it,” he urgently messaged Smith. Then, panicking: “I ncant clpsoe it.”

Firestone was later told that a “system error” blocked the trade and, inexplicably, also wiped away the $24.5 million in his CoinBridge account. His lawsuit alleges that Alpha Stock Investment “intentionally sabotaged his trade to once again empty his CoinBridge account.”

Still, he was not done. Two days later, Firestone borrowed $1 million from the training center and began trading again. His account soon showed a balance of $6.6 million. But then that $330,000 loan came due. He paid $200,000 of it in U.S. dollars but couldn’t pay the rest and ASITC wouldn’t accept crypto as payment. So, on May 1, the school closed his CoinBridge account.

Between January and March, Firestone made 11 payments totaling $861,570 to ASITC and CoinBridge, according to the lawsuit that he filed in Denver’s federal court last week. Looking back, he now believes all of it — the signals, the gains, the losses — was phony.