Nevada’s Financial Institutions Division has issued a cease and desist order against Fortress Trust, stating that the firm is “on the verge of insolvency”. The company admits it “failed to safeguard assets under its custody and is unable to meet all customer withdrawals”. The company has only around $1.3 million in actual assets in custody, while it owes customers around $12.3 million.In 2023, Fortress experienced a $15 million theft. Though the company originally announced it would be acquired by Ripple, which had agreed to cover the shortfall, the deal eventually fell through. It’s not clear how — or if — the funds were ever restored.Fortress’s insolvency has strong parallels to that of Prime Trust, another trust company that shares a founder in Scott Purcell. NFID issued a cease and desist to Prime Trust in June 2023 after finding the company was insolvent; in bankruptcy proceedings, that company later blamed much of the insolvency on losing access to a hardware wallet that held customer assets.

Total loss estimated at $11,000,000.