The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that a defunct cryptocurrency trading platform and its founder have been ordered to pay $18.4-million after a B.C. Securities Commission panel found the company committed fraud by lying to its customers and misappropriating millions of their funds for gambling and other purposes. The Globe's Alexandra Posadzki writes that a panel of three commissioners on Monday ordered David Smillie and his crypto platform, a numbered company operating as ezBtc, to pay a combined $10.4-million. Mr. Smillie, who was a B.C. resident when the exchange was operating, has also been ordered to pay an administrative penalty of $8-million. The ezBtc platform, which allowed users to buy, sell or trade crypto assets, was incorporated in British Columbia in 2016 and went off-line three years later. The company was dissolved in 2022. The platform's customers were told that their assets would be held off-line in what is known as cold storage, isolated from the Internet. Instead, roughly a third of the crypto assets deposited with the exchange or acquired through the platform were sent either to gambling sites or Mr. Smillie's personal accounts on other crypto exchanges, according to the panel.