TEXITcoin fraud case

Thanks for listening to North Texas Now. I'm Miranda Suarez. And I'm Ron Corning. Riddle me this. What do you get when you take the mania of cryptocurrency and mix in the vibe of the Texas nationalist movement? Well, Ron. You get Texitcoin, a blockchain digital currency that has recently run into trouble with the law. On Monday, the Texas State Securities Board will present its fraud enforcement case against Texitcoin. Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies explains. Texit coin promotes itself as a digital currency created in Texas for people who want an alternative to banks and traditional money. But the cryptocurrency and its related crypto mining operations now face allegations of securities fraud from Texas regulators. Last February, the Texas State Securities Board issued Texit Coin, its founder Bobby Gray, and related companies an emergency ceased and desist order. Regulators allege Texas TechSitcoins mining packages were unregistered securities sold through a multi-level marketing system. The mining packages are passive investments in crypto mining operations that Gray called seats on the Texitcoin rocket ship. And they wanted us to stop. offering these alleged securities in Texas. Texit Coin's slogan is built in Texas, mined in Texas, owned by Texans. But Gray isn't in Texas. He spoke from his boat in Singapore. He left Texas immediately after the cease and desist order on what he called a self-imposed exile. He has complied with the order to stop selling crypto mining packages, but he continues his online promotion of Texit Coin. Crypto is very confusing. is full of scams. And so it's understandable that the TSSB took an interest in the project and did what they did, not that we like it. Gray said Texit coin is not a scam. But that's the word critics like Tom Tolka used to describe it. I saw the Texit. coin people and all their paraphernalia and their marketing. And it just seemed like a really kind of dirty scam to trick people, you know, based on their political beliefs. Tolka is a journalist covering crypto for DisruptionBanking.com. There is a website called texat scam.com that documents some of the issues with the digital currency. Again, Gray said Texitcoin is not a scam. but a community currency that picks up where Bitcoin left off. I don't know what the trolls say. I know that we've got quite a group of people that have dedicated their time and energy to spreading lies about us. Texit Coins mining partner, Mine TXC, sold packages had entitled buyers to a share of coins produced by its mining network. Participants could also earn commissions and bonuses by recruiting additional buyers.

But Gray said that does not make Texacoin a pyramid scheme because a classic pyramid scheme has no real product. We have an extremely valuable product. And also we have a whole bunch of caps and limitations inside of our referral program that they get so that we've got more than a 20 times the national average rate of somebody actually getting a specific benefit out of their participation. Texit Coins website says its mining operation has generated roughly $148 million in gross sales from approximately 55,000 participants. Tolka says many of these are supporters of Texas nationalism. I would say it's associated with a political movement. It's built around the idea of Texas. Danny Miller, president of the Texas Nationalist Movement, says they are not connected to Texacoin. I don't like it, but, you know, there's not really anything we could do about it. Miller says anyone can grab the word Texit and use it, and the Texas Nationalist Movement does not profit in any way from Texit Coin. Gray also said there is no relationship with the Texas Nationalist Movement. I'm not familiar with the Texas Nationalist Movement. We have no affiliation with that. I might. I know of them. But the Texit Coin website explicitly promotes the Texas Nationalist Movement. It praises Danny Miller and the Texot Movement. It links directly to the Texas Nationalist Movement's website, Instagram, and X accounts. And tells readers to give them a follow. Also, in an extended online monologue about the origin of Texit coin, Gray explains that he first heard about Texit while listening to the Joe Rogan podcast. And I started looking into that, came across the Texas nationalist movement and these Republic of Texas folks, and there's some really great people there, some weird ones as well. Gray said he recognized the opportunity to merge cryptocurrency with the separatist movement. which he supported. If you talk to a Texan, man, most of us are saying, let's go. We don't know what the federal government's doing. We don't understand it. We don't really want to be lumped in with those weirdos. Let's go back to where it was before. Let's be our own country once again. And Gray has pitched that if Texas secedes, Texan coin could be the national currency. He has called it the future of money in Texas. But we don't know what the future holds for Texas or Texans. And we would like to imagine that if Texas and its people chose to make it a political change, that they would have an honest currency that they could use instead of coming up with a new debt-based fiat currency. Journalist Tolka said this narrative is very exciting for many who support Texas secession. whom he described as Texit Coins' customer base. And it's a rag-tag bunch of people that are noobs. You know, they don't know anything about crypto. Many of these investors bought Texit Coin mining operations, thinking the value of the currency would increase and they would get rich. However, that is not the case, Tolka said. Gray said the cryptocurrency has had its ups and downs.

We briefly got very close to $7 in September of 2025, and we've been as low as 5, 6, 7, 8 cents in the last few months. So quite the range. The Texas State Securities Board is holding an evidentiary hearing beginning Monday to determine whether Gray and Texacoin violated the Texas Securities Act by selling unregistered securities and not disclosing critical information. including Gray's previous bankruptcy from a venture called Mulligan Mint. Gray said he has been transparent about that failed business where there is a dispute over missing and unpaid for silver. Which is just, you know, completely not true. In fact, it was a regular conversation topic for us because. What happened in my life back in 2013 had such a profound effect and impact on my ability to do this project as well as I've done it. Gray and Texacoin deny wrongdoing and argue that the mining packages represent participation in a legitimate proof of work mining pool, not securities. I'm David Martin Davies in San Antonio. Thanks to David for that report. As he explained in the piece, Texit refers to the Texas Succession Movement. If you didn't catch on, it's Texas exit. And it's online and they have a presence and this coin may be subject. to, you know, more national regulations in the future. So their plans may be a bit thwarted. We'll follow it closely. We are glad you're listening to North Texas now live on the radio here at KERA, but you can listen to North Texas now on your own time by checking out our podcast. You can download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or stream the show live on the KERA app. Yeah, we have every episode kind of cut up into convenient little chunks for you. Pods, if you will, almost. Huh? Yes, it's a whole new thing. So you can listen to any segments that you please, like Ron said, you can get that on the podcast app of your choice. Lucky for you. We've also got a newsletter. You can keep track of the important conversations happening across North Texas, plus interesting deep dives into what defines our community. You can sign up for that at k-e-r-a-news.org slash North Texas now. We've got some more time here on the book. So let's extend our conversation, shall we? Yes, let's do it. What would you like to talk about? That's... What are you looking at me like that? That's called a volley. I'm sorry. I was trying to yes and and I did a no but. It's the first no and improv. You're listening to North Texas now.