Related Research Articles
A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, this type of scheme misleads investors by either falsely suggesting that profits are derived from legitimate business activities, or by exaggerating the extent and profitability of the legitimate business activities, leveraging new investments to fabricate or supplement these profits. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as investors continue to contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment or lose faith in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.
Bitcoin is the first decentralized cryptocurrency. Nodes in the peer-to-peer bitcoin network verify transactions through cryptography and record them in a public distributed ledger, called a blockchain, without central oversight. Consensus between nodes is achieved using a computationally intensive process based on proof of work, called mining, that guarantees the security of the bitcoin blockchain. Mining consumes increasing quantities of electricity and has been criticized for its environmental effects.
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it.
Gemini Trust Company, LLC (Gemini) is an American cryptocurrency exchange and custodian bank. It was founded in 2014 by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss.
Quadriga Fintech Solutions was the owner and operator of QuadrigaCX, which was believed to be Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange at the time of its collapse in 2019, with the exchange ceasing operations and the company filing for bankruptcy with C$215.7 million in liabilities and about C$28 million in assets.
OneCoin is a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme conducted by offshore companies OneCoin Ltd, based in Bulgaria and registered in Dubai, and OneLife Network Ltd, both founded by Ruja Ignatova in concert with Sebastian Greenwood. OneCoin is considered a Ponzi scheme due to its organisational structure of paying early investors using money obtained from newer ones. It was also a pyramid scheme due to the recruiting of investors without providing any actual product. The company secretly conducted database entry scam simulating transactions not registered by an actual blockchain, and with no mining behind the apparent cryptocurrency release and circulation. Many of those characters central to OneCoin had been previously involved in similar and different other schemes and business malpractices separate from each other. OneCoin was described by The Times as "one of the biggest scams in history".
Digital Currency Group (DCG) is a venture capital company focusing on the digital currency market. It is located in Stamford, Connecticut. The company has the subsidiaries Foundry, Genesis, Grayscale Investments, and Luno. It also formerly owned CoinDesk.
Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange owned and operated by iFinex Inc, and is registered in the British Virgin Islands. Bitfinex was founded in 2012. It was originally a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange, and later added support for other cryptocurrencies.
Bitconnect was an open-source cryptocurrency in 2016–2018 that was connected with a high-yield investment program, a type of Ponzi scheme. After the platform administrators closed the earning platform on January 16, 2018, and refunded the users' investments in BCC following a 92% coin value crash, confidence was lost and the value of the coin plummeted to below $1 from a previous high of nearly $525.
Amit K. Bhardwaj was an Indian businessman who founded Amaze Mining and Blockchain Research Limited which ran GB [Gainbitcoin] Miners among other bitcoin-related businesses and projects, these have been described as various types of Ponzi schemes.
Tether is a cryptocurrency stablecoin, launched by the company Tether Limited Inc. in 2014. As of January 2024, Tether's website lists fourteen protocols and blockchains on which Tether has been minted.
Alexander Vinnik is a Russian computer expert. From 2011 to 2017, he worked at BTC-e, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange.
A cryptocurrency bubble is a phenomenon where the market increasingly considers the going price of cryptocurrency assets to be inflated against their hypothetical value. The history of cryptocurrency has been marked by several speculative bubbles.
Cryptocurrency and crime describe notable examples of cybercrime related to theft of cryptocurrencies and some methods or security vulnerabilities commonly exploited. Cryptojacking is a form of cybercrime specific to cryptocurrencies that have been used on websites to hijack a victim's resources and use them for hashing and mining cryptocurrency.
Ruja Plamenova Ignatova is a Bulgarian-born German entrepreneur who in 2019 was convicted of fraud. She is best known as the founder of a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme known as OneCoin, which The Times has described as "one of the biggest scams in history". She is the subject of the 2019 BBC podcast series The Missing Cryptoqueen and the 2022 book of the same name.
PlusToken was a ponzi scheme that operated worldwide but mainly had investors in China and South Korea.
Celsius Network LLC was a cryptocurrency company. Headquartered in Hoboken, New Jersey, Celsius maintained offices in four countries and operated globally. Users could deposit a range of cryptocurrency digital assets, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, into a Celsius wallet to earn a percentage yield, and could take out loans by pledging their cryptocurrencies as security. As of May 2022, the company had lent out $8 billion to clients and had almost $12 billion in assets under management.
Terra is a blockchain protocol and payment platform used for algorithmic stablecoins. The project was created in 2018 by Terraform Labs, a startup co-founded by Do Kwon and Daniel Shin. It was best known for its Terra stablecoin and the associated Luna reserve asset cryptocurrency.
Three Arrows Capital was a Singapore-based cryptocurrency hedge fund which was ordered to liquidate on 27 June 2022 by a court in the British Virgin Islands. It was founded in 2012 by Kyle Davies and Su Zhu. The company borrowed billions of dollars to fund its trading, and according to July 2022 bankruptcy filings, faces $3.5 billion in creditors' claims. The fund appears to have lost in excess of $3 billion over 2021 and 2022, making its collapse one of the largest hedge-fund trading losses of all time.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Vermeulen, Jan. "Mirror Trading International Declared a pyramid scheme". Archived from the original on 7 February 2024. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Cohen, Tim (3 May 2023). "More Billions wasted: The smoke is clearing on Mirror Trading International". Daily Maverick. Archived from the original on 28 November 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- ↑ Cronje, Jan. "US judge fines MTI boss a record R64bn as SA court rules site was 'unlawful Ponzi scheme'". news24.com. Archived from the original on 20 September 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- ↑ "Fugitive CEO Ordered to Pay $3.4 Billion in Record Fraud Case Involving Bitcoin". Bloomberg.com. 27 April 2023. Archived from the original on 29 April 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- ↑ Schroeder, Pete (7 September 2023). "US court orders Mirror Trading International to pay $1.7 billion in restitution for crypto fraud". Reuters. Archived from the original on 7 September 2023. Retrieved 24 September 2023.
- ↑ "Bitcoin to bust: World's biggest Ponzi scheme could cause more heartache for Australians". Sydney Morning Herald. 2 December 2023. Archived from the original on 1 December 2023. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
- ↑ Unraveling the MTI Saga: The Chronology of a Bitcoin Behemoth's Downfall - Get a Quid - MTI Recovery Group
- ↑ CFTC Charges South African Bitcoin Club Mirror Trading International With $1.7B Fraud Anatomy of a bitcoin scam: How MTI duped investors - TechCentral