Probably the largest Ponzi scheme in the modern world was “designed” by Bernie Madoff who scammed corporate America with around $70 billion back in 2008. Now, as cryptocurrencies garnish share in the world’s economy, it is not surprising to learn that there are also cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes.
One such is called OneCoin. OneCoin is a Ponzi scheme that was once classified as a digital asset that was built on the blockchain network. However, this turned out not to be true after it was discovered that OneCoin is a simple Ponzi scheme and not built on blockchain at all.
The creator of OneCoin is the prominent Bulgarian businesswoman, Ruja Ignatova. The major business that OneCoin proclaimed to have is simply selling educational material for trading. With each package that a user buys, he or she gets a token that mines OneCoin. From then, users can unlock different educational packages.
While the company was claiming to not be selling cryptocurrencies, but only educational materials, this turned out to be false. Now, no other currency can be exchanged with OneCoin. The whole organization structure and the team behind the project proved that OneCoin is a huge Ponzi scheme.
After the discovery, Ruja Ignatova has been sued by several governments and banned from a series of countries. OneCoin has undergone in-depth investigation and the most recent one comes from China.
China is now prosecuting 98 people and has recovered over $260 million in OneCoins. According to South China Morning Post, the whole Ponzi scheme amounts to around $2.3 billion. All companies that were in some way connected to OneCoin are now being investigated, including companies in Itay, UK, US, Ireland and Ukraine.
There is no accurate amount that can describe the magnitude of the whole OneCoin Ponzi scheme. However, prosecutors in China are doing their best right now to fight the Chinese who were involved in multiple Chinese provinces with illegal OneCoin activity.