Stefan Qin
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anchored·4yzoES…p7pCSummary
Stefan He Qin is an Australian national who founded and operated two cryptocurrency hedge funds — Virgil Sigma Fund LP and VQR Multistrategy Fund LP — between 2016 and 2020, fraudulently raising approximately $90 million from over 100 investors by fabricating returns and misrepresenting fund strategy. He siphoned investor assets for personal use, attempted to raid a second fund to cover losses, and was arrested after SEC intervention in December 2020. Qin pleaded guilty to federal securities fraud in February 2021 and was sentenced to 90 months in prison in September 2021, making his case one of the largest individual crypto fraud prosecutions prior to the FTX collapse.
Connected Entities
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Timeline(12 events)
2016
Stefan Qin, approximately age 19, drops out of university and founds Virgil Capital in New York after an internship at a Chinese cryptocurrency firm.
Fortune / Information Age2017
Virgil Sigma Fund LP begins raising investor capital. Qin later claims the fund returned 500% during 2017, though prosecutors allege no legitimate arbitrage strategy was ever deployed.
DOJ SDNY / CoinDeskFebruary 2018
Wall Street Journal publishes a profile of Qin as a cryptocurrency prodigy, significantly increasing investor interest and inflows to Virgil Sigma.
FortuneSeptember 2019
Qin signs a lease for a $23,000-per-month penthouse apartment at 50 West in Manhattan, funded by misappropriated investor capital.
Fortune2019
Qin fabricates trading records and alters spreadsheets purporting to show positions across approximately 39 cryptocurrency exchanges.
SEC ComplaintMay 2020
Sigma Fund records reflect approximately 110 investors with balances ranging from $100,000 to $16 million. Mid-2020 redemption requests begin being blocked.
SEC ComplaintDecember 2020
Qin approaches VQR employees seeking to withdraw $1.7 million in investor assets to repay alleged Chinese lenders; employees refuse and report the approach to authorities.
SEC Press Release 2020-34122 December 2020
SEC files civil complaint in SDNY against Qin and five affiliated entities; court grants emergency asset freeze over approximately $25 million in digital assets.
SEC Press Release 2020-3414 February 2021
Qin pleads guilty to one count of securities fraud before U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni in the Southern District of New York.
DOJ SDNY15 September 2021
Judge Caproni sentences Qin to 90 months (7.5 years) in federal prison, three years of supervised release, and orders forfeiture of $54,793,532.
DOJ SDNY2 March 2022
Final civil judgment entered against Qin: permanently enjoined from securities fraud violations; ordered to pay $36,352,028 in disgorgement plus $3,494,791 in prejudgment interest.
SEC Litigation Release LR-253424 March 2022
SEC issues administrative order permanently barring Qin from association with any broker, dealer, investment adviser, or related financial entity under Section 203(f) of the Investment Advisers Act.
SEC Administrative Order IA-5974Decision Log
- slot 423160768 · hash 8tZFa1c4ayWaKCynoNB2EKsP2v7vEHKvzWT4SBhMtzr2
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (1 decision). 16 of 16 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-5
generated: 5/30/2026, 12:57:07 PM
last updated: 8/28/2026, 11:58:54 PM
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