Courtney Werning Tells David Meltzer: Crypto Investors Have More Legal Protection Than They Think

Who Is David Meltzer and Why Did This Interview Matter?

David Meltzer is an entrepreneur, author, and media personality known for his work in sports business and personal development. Before that career, he was an oil and gas litigator and one of the first four employees at Westlaw in 1992, at a time when legal research on a computer was considered a fad. He recalled Justice Scalia personally telling him that nobody would ever do research on a computer. History proved otherwise.

That background gave Meltzer a unique vantage point in this conversation. He understood firsthand what it looks like when an emerging technology collides with institutional skepticism and how quickly that skepticism gives way to inevitability. As his own digital asset holdings have grown, his question has become practical: how does an investor protect what they have built? Werning’s answer: the law is catching up faster than most people think, and investors have far more recourse than they assume.

From Ponzi Schemes to Crypto Exchanges: The Evolution of Investor Fraud

Courtney Werning has spent more than 13 years representing investors with claims against financial institutions. The early years centered on Ponzi schemes, unsuitable investment recommendations, and broker misrepresentation. That work has not gone away, but the landscape has fundamentally shifted.

Hacking. SIM swaps. Phishing. “Smishing.” These are now the mechanisms through which real investors are losing real money, and according to Werning, they are pervasive. Her position is direct: if cryptocurrency platforms want mainstream adoption, they need to meet mainstream standards for investor protection. That conviction is the intellectual engine behind Crypto.court, MWW’s dedicated platform for digital asset investor claims.

What Is Crypto.court and Who Does It Serve?

Crypto.court is Meyer Wilson Werning’s dedicated practice platform for investors harmed by cryptocurrency exchange failures, security negligence, and other digital asset misconduct. It is not a side practice or a recent addition. It is a purpose-built platform led by one of the most credentialed attorneys in this space.

Courtney Werning is a current board member of PIABA (Public Investors Advocate Bar Association), chairs the organization’s arbitration committee, serves on its crypto task force, and has been appointed to FINRA’s National Arbitration and Mediation Committee (NAMC), placing her at the center of the regulatory infrastructure that governs how investor disputes are resolved nationwide. She is on track to assume the PIABA presidency in 2027, which would make her just the fourth woman to lead the organization in its history.

Beyond litigation, Werning described an active lobbying presence through her bar association leadership, pushing for sensible market regulation. Not the elimination of cryptocurrency markets, but the establishment of accountability structures that protect the investors who participate in them.

The Cross-Generational Reality of Investor Harm

One of the most striking moments in the conversation came when Werning described her average week. She might represent a 93-year-old widow in a claim against Morgan Stanley for unsuitable investment recommendations while simultaneously representing a 25-year-old crypto trader whose account was hacked through a SIM swap attack.

Two completely different clients. One shared experience: a financial institution that failed them. Investment fraud does not discriminate by age or asset class, and Meyer Wilson Werning has built its practice to serve the full spectrum of investors caught in its path.

What Protections Do Crypto Investors Actually Have?

Most investors who lose money through a crypto exchange assume there is nothing they can do. That assumption is wrong. When a cryptocurrency exchange is hacked, when a SIM swap enables unauthorized account access, when a platform’s negligent security practices expose investor accounts to theft, those are potentially actionable failures that give injured investors grounds to pursue recovery.

The key claims in this space typically center on:

• Exchange negligence: failure to implement reasonable security measures to protect investor accounts
• SIM swap attacks: fraudsters porting a victim’s phone number to steal authentication credentials, with the exchange failing to catch it
• Phishing and “smishing”: fraudulent communications designed to obtain account credentials, compounded by institutional failures to prevent account compromise
• Insider targeting: exchange employees or insiders facilitating unauthorized account access

Because many of these cases proceed through arbitration, MWW can represent affected investors anywhere in the country.

Why Meyer Wilson Werning Is the Right Firm for This Fight

Cryptocurrency fraud is accelerating, and the investors absorbing those losses are increasingly ordinary people: retirees, young professionals, first-time digital asset holders who trusted a platform to protect what they built. What most of them do not know is that when an exchange fails them through negligence, lax security, or institutional indifference, the law provides a path to recovery. Awareness, as both Meltzer and Werning emphasized in this conversation, is the first step.

With more than $350 million recovered for investors nationwide, Meyer Wilson Werning has spent over 25 years holding financial institutions accountable for exactly this kind of misconduct. If you have suffered losses through a cryptocurrency exchange or any other form of investment fraud, our cryptocurrency fraud attorneys are reviewing claims now. Contact us today for a free and confidential consultation. You pay nothing unless we recover for you.

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