Yieldstreet Review 2026: Is It Legit? SEC Order, Lawsuits, Losses

Yieldstreet review: what the records say (Oct 2026)

Most Yieldstreet reviews in the search results were written while the platform was growing, and most were never updated. The record has moved a lot since. This is every primary document we found, what it says, and where to read it yourself.

Two things in that table are new since we first published this review in April 2026: the Treasury sanctions case, which no Yieldstreet review we found mentions, and the end of the Alternative Income Fund, now confirmed by the fund's own filings rather than expected.

Is Yieldstreet legit?

Yes, in the narrow sense people usually mean. YieldStreet Inc. is a Delaware corporation that its 2019 Form D says was incorporated in 2014. Its adviser has been registered with the SEC since 2016, according to the SEC's own order. Its notes, funds and registered fund filed with the SEC for years. Investors were not sold something that did not exist.

But "legit" is the wrong bar for a platform that holds your money for five years. The better questions are whether it told investors what it knew, and whether investors got their money back. On the first, the SEC found that before the September 2019 Vessel Deconstruction VI offering, YieldStreet had received a report that some ships securing earlier loans to the same borrower “appear ‘broken up’” and that others could not be located, accepted the borrower's assurances, and went ahead without telling investors. The order says “Investors in the Vessel Deconstruction VI Offering now face millions of dollars of losses.” On the second, the class that sued over three other offerings got cash equal to 12.29% of its net losses, in its own lawyers' words.

That is why our rating stays at 1.0 out of 5. It is a rating of the record, not an accusation of fraud: the SEC's order was settled without admitting or denying the findings, and the class action ended in a settlement, not a verdict.

Yieldstreet lawsuits: every case on the record

The SEC case (2023)

The order (Securities Act Release No. 11230, Advisers Act Release No. 6414) covers one offering. From approximately June 2018 through September 2019, YieldStreet made six offerings financing loans to a single borrower group in the United Arab Emirates that bought retired ships and arranged for them to be scrapped. Investors were told each loan was “secured by a first mortgage lien on the Vessel” and that the ship's aggregate scrap value had to stay at no less than 120% of the loan's outstanding principal.

In late July 2019 an outside contractor reported that a few of the ships “appear ‘broken up.’” YieldStreet went ahead with the sixth offering on September 29, 2019 and raised $14.5 million. The SEC found that the borrower had already had that offering's ship deconstructed on September 23, 2019, missed a payment in October 2019, and, as YieldStreet concluded in 2020, had by then deconstructed all but one of the ships that collateralized its loans and stolen the proceeds.

The money: $1,939,220.41 in total, jointly and severally, made up of $888,909.16 of disgorgement and $50,311.25 of interest (offset by $601,650 of fees YieldStreet agreed not to collect) and a $1,000,000 civil penalty, all for a Fair Fund for the Vessel Deconstruction VI investors. The adviser was censured. So the widely repeated "$1.9 million fine" is close but not quite right: the penalty was $1 million; the rest was disgorgement and interest.

The class action (2020 to 2025)

Investors sued in the Southern District of New York on September 9, 2020 (No. 1:20-cv-07327). The defendants were YieldStreet Inc., YieldStreet Management, YS AltNotes note issuers, and then-president Michael Weisz as an alleged control person. The original complaint alleged that YieldStreet told investors none of its offerings had ever lost principal when one already had, and that it ignored warnings from its own marine expert. Those are allegations; none was decided at trial.

The court certified a class limited to three offerings: Vessel Deconstruction I, Vessel Deconstruction Fund III and Louisiana Oil & Gas Fund. Class counsel's settlement brief (Doc. 157, filed October 25, 2024) gives the numbers:

• $6,200,000 in cash, plus $2,750,000 of accrued fees YieldStreet will waive against future collections. The waiver is worth something only if more money is recovered.
• Total alleged principal loss of the class: $50,459,722.
• The cash is “a 12.29% recovery on net losses,” in counsel's words.
• Class members kept their notes and any share of future recoveries, which the brief lists as a $76.7 million English court judgment against the borrower's guarantors, a suit against loan originator Four Wood in New York state court, and a malpractice suit against law firm Stephenson Harwood.

The court had approved the settlement terms on October 28, 2024 (as Doc. 160 records), and the case was terminated on February 21, 2025.

What the court papers say about the other losses

The settlement brief and the original complaint are the only primary documents we found that put numbers on Yieldstreet's marine, oil-and-gas and art losses. All of these are what one side said in litigation, not findings:

The defense side, in the same brief: YieldStreet said it was the victim of a sophisticated fraud by the marine borrower, that other maritime lenders were fooled by the same scheme, that its founders and executives invested their own money in the same offerings, and that 43% of investors kept investing with Yieldstreet despite knowing of the marine defaults.

The 2026 Treasury sanctions case

This one is easy to miss because YieldStreet is not a party. In Times Navigation Inc. v. Bessent (D.D.C. No. 1:26-cv-02345), a Greek shipping company says it “entered into sale-leaseback agreements for three vessels with YieldStreet, Inc.” Per its complaint, OFAC alleges that on 11 occasions between April 26, 2018 and March 5, 2019, the shipowner carried Iranian-origin minerals and metals on those vessels, which OFAC alleges “caused YieldStreet, a U.S. entity, to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran.” OFAC issued the shipowner a Pre-Penalty Notice on May 19, 2026 for $4,075,827.

The shipowner sued on July 2, 2026 to stop OFAC's administrative process. On August 31, 2026 Judge Beryl A. Howell denied a preliminary injunction; a summary-judgment motion was still being briefed. Neither document we saved says whether OFAC has taken action against YieldStreet itself, and we found none published. What the record does show is that the vessel-finance business had a second problem besides the scrapping fraud.

Other cases

A 2020 website-accessibility suit (S.D.N.Y. 1:20-cv-09254) closed in November 2021 and has nothing to do with investments. YieldStreet Inc. also appears as a creditor in the 2024 Synapse Financial Technologies bankruptcy (Bankr. C.D. Cal.), the fintech middleman whose collapse is the subject of separate suits by customers of several apps. We found no new investor class action filed against YieldStreet or Willow Wealth after the 2025 settlement, as of October 7, 2026. A law firm advertising an "investigation" has not filed a lawsuit.

The short version: what happened at Yieldstreet

Yieldstreet launched in 2015 promising "alternative investments" (real estate loans, marine finance, legal finance, art) that had been reserved for institutions. Its corporate Form D filings show $40,000,000 of equity sold to four investors in a round that began February 15, 2019, and $66,197,463 sold to 89 investors in an offering that began January 22, 2024. The 2024 filing does not say what the shares were for.

The marine book collapsed in 2020. In August 2025, CNBC reported that of 30 real estate deals it reviewed, four had been declared total losses and 23 were on the company's "watchlist," with $78 million of defaults in the past year. In September 2025 CNBC reported that the company told investors in $89 million of marine loans that it was getting a $5 million settlement from the borrowers, but that its recovery cost “well exceeds the entire settlement amount.” In December 2025 CNBC reported about $41 million of new real estate losses in Houston and Nashville and put the total at at least $208 million, with 9 of the 30 reviewed deals in default.

The company announced the Willow Wealth name on October 22, 2025, and its SEC filings carried the new corporate names by January 28, 2026. Its registered fund was handed to Mount Logan's SOFIX on August 24, 2026.

Timeline of key events

The $208M in losses: what CNBC found

CNBC's three reports (August 18, September 5 and December 5, 2025) were built on company letters to investors that CNBC obtained. We have not seen those letters, so the figures below are CNBC's, not ours.

2010 West End Avenue, Nashville. About $35 million of losses across two funds, with Adam Neumann's family office Nazare Capital listed as sponsor. Yieldstreet told investors in May 2025 that the property had been sold to Tishman Speyer, “resulting in a complete loss of capital for investors,” per CNBC.

Stacks on Main, Nashville. A 268-unit apartment building; investors put $18.2 million into two funds at an advertised 16.4% annual return, per CNBC's December report, which lists it among the new defaults.

Houston Multi-Family Equity Fund. Among the December 2025 defaults.

Portland, Oregon multifamily loan. $11.6 million, “currently in default” after an appraisal found the borrower owed more than the property was worth (CNBC, December 2025).

Tucson, Arizona development. A $23 million deal Yieldstreet told investors was in technical default and headed for a full write-off (CNBC, August 2025).

Marine loans. $89 million of loans that were supposed to be backed by 13 ships, per CNBC citing the company's own lawsuit against the borrower. The court papers above describe the same collapse.

The default rate. By December 2025, 9 of the 30 real estate deals CNBC reviewed were in default, a 30% failure rate. CNBC wrote that some in the industry estimate typical failure rates of 2% to 8%. Yieldstreet, for its part, told CNBC it had offered 149 real estate deals and delivered positive returns on 94% of matured ones; CNBC noted that figure likely excludes distressed deals not yet matured.

The rebrand: what changed and what didn't

The company announced the Willow Wealth name on October 22, 2025. The legal change shows up in an SEC filing on January 28, 2026: the Alternative Income Fund's prospectus supplement says the adviser “has changed its name to Willow Asset Management LLC” and that “Yieldstreet Inc. has changed its name to Willow Wealth Inc.” The same supplement adds: “The Fund’s name and its website (https://www.yieldstreetalternativeincomefund.com/) remain unchanged.”

CNBC reported in December 2025 that a chart on the company's website showing annualized real estate returns of negative 2% from 2015 to 2025, down from 9.4% gains two years earlier, had been taken down, and that the company introduced a mascot called Hampton Dumpty. The rebrand changed nothing for existing investors' positions: the notes, SPVs and court cases keep the Yieldstreet entity names. Our Willow Wealth 2026 status review covers the new product menu, the 2025 Series D and the management changes.

The Alternative Income Fund (formerly Prism): how it ended

This was the one Yieldstreet product open to non-accredited investors, which began operations on March 9, 2020 at a net asset value of $10.00 a share. Its last reports:

• Net asset value $9.03 a share and net assets $135,949,339 at December 31, 2025 (annual N-CSR).
• Net asset value $8.89 a share and net assets $133,508,596 at June 30, 2026 (semi-annual N-CSRS, filed September 4, 2026).
• The board approved the reorganization into Mount Logan's Opportunistic Credit Interval Fund (SOFIX) on March 18, 2026; shareholders approved it on July 31, 2026; and “The Reorganization was completed on August 24, 2026,” per the N-CSRS.
• The fund's Form N-8F (September 21, 2026) lists merger expenses of $4,471,258, of which the fund itself paid $1,300,978: $859,584 of legal fees, $331,394 for a fairness opinion and $110,000 for the special committee. The fund's adviser paid $388,237.
• Separately, under a Transition Services Agreement, Willow was to receive $2 million in cash and $1 million of Mount Logan stock at closing and up to $2 million more over two years (Form 425, March 19, 2026).

The rationed exits, the return of capital and the fee increase in SOFIX are in our Prism fund wind-down analysis.

What affected investors can do with this

If you hold, or held, a Yieldstreet or Willow Wealth investment:

1. Find your offering in the records above. If it was Vessel Deconstruction VI, you were covered by the SEC's Fair Fund. If it was Vessel Deconstruction I, Vessel Deconstruction Fund III or Louisiana Oil & Gas Fund, you were in the settled class; the settlement kept your rights to future recoveries from the $76.7 million English judgment and the other suits, so keep your notices.
2. Save every investor letter and K-1. CNBC's reporting came from those letters; they are also what a lawyer or arbitrator will ask for.
3. If your deal is written off, ask about the tax year. A loss on a note or SPV interest is generally claimed when it becomes worthless or is sold; a tax professional can tell you which year applies to yours.
4. Former Alternative Income Fund holders are now SOFIX shareholders. Your exit is SOFIX's quarterly repurchase offer, not Willow's.
5. Complaints: the SEC takes tips at sec.gov/tcr. Before paying a law firm that advertises an "investigation," ask for the docket number.

Alternatives to Yieldstreet

Our Yieldstreet alternatives page compares the platforms that offer what Yieldstreet sold (private credit, real estate debt, diversified funds) on the same terms: minimums, accreditation, liquidity and what their filings show. For the wider pattern of platforms that failed or froze, see real estate crowdfunding failures.

Corrections and updates

October 7, 2026. We rebuilt this review on primary documents. Corrections to the April 2026 version: the class settlement was $6.2 million in cash plus a $2.75 million fee waiver that only applies to future recoveries, not "$9M"; it was preliminarily approved on October 28, 2024 and the case closed on February 21, 2025; the class covered two marine offerings and one oil-and-gas offering, not "2018-2020 investors in marine products"; the SEC's "$1.9M fine" was a $1,000,000 penalty plus disgorgement and interest; the Alternative Income Fund deal is no longer pending (completed August 24, 2026), and its net assets were $133.5 million, not "$100M+". We removed a fee range, a Trustpilot score and claims about other review sites that we could not source, and the name of an investor quoted in the press. New: the Treasury sanctions case, the court papers' loss figures for the marine, oil-and-gas and art offerings, the Form D raises, and the fund's N-8F.

For the Willow Wealth product menu, the 2025 Series D and the management changes, see our Willow Wealth 2026 status review. For Cadre, which Yieldstreet bought in January 2024, see our Cadre 2026 status review.

Sources: SEC order In the Matter of YieldStreet Inc. and YieldStreet Management, LLC, Securities Act Release No. 11230 (September 12, 2023) and SEC press release 2023-175; S.D.N.Y. No. 1:20-cv-07327, Docs. 1, 157 and 160, and the CourtListener docket record (terminated February 21, 2025); D.D.C. No. 1:26-cv-02345, Docs. 1 and 22; Yieldstreet Alternative Income Fund Inc. (CIK 1762229) 424B3 of January 28, 2026 (0002071844-26-000125), N-CSR of March 11, 2026 (0001104659-26-026190), Form 425 of March 19, 2026 (0001398344-26-005372), N-CSRS of September 4, 2026 (0001104659-26-105275) and N-8F of September 21, 2026 (0001104659-26-109175); YieldStreet Inc. (CIK 1660849) Forms D 0001231919-19-000006 and 0001660849-24-000006; CNBC reports of August 18, September 5 and December 5, 2025 (press). We have no affiliate relationship with Willow Wealth and do not link to its sign-up page. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.