Yesterday the criminal case against Trendon Shavers has finally progressed to the point that Shavers could enter a plea of not guilty. This is in spite of his Ponzi scheme collapsing a full year before the arrest of Ross Ulbricht who has already been tried and convicted. Both Shavers and Ulbricht are targets selected for criminal prosecution by United States Attorney Preet Bharara. Criminal charges were filed against Shavers back in November 2014 in Manhattan after Shavers lost in a civil case brought by the SEC in September where he was ordered to pay 40 million dollars in damages. The SEC's civil case occurred in Shaver's home state of Texas.

Shavers using the username pirateat40 operated a Ponzi scheme he referred to as the Bitcoin Savings and Trust where he recruited a number of lieutenants to work as pass through operators marketing participation in the scheme to victims. Shavers at the same time also operated a mining outfit called GPUMAX which purported to be a market place for trading hashrate. It is probable that Shavers used proceeds from his Ponzi to acquire freshly mined coins via GPUMAX confounding efforts to estimate the full economic impact of his scheme.