Ruja Ignatova launched OneCoin in 2014, saying that it functioned in the same way as every other digital money at the time. Even if you don’t have an e-wallet, OneCoin may be mined and can be used to spend for goods and services. No design or mode of payment for the OneCoin blockchain was present. Cryptocurrency courses were available from the firm. Multi-level marketing was used to encourage clients to refer others to the course. Students who purchased the training courses were supposed to earn OneCoin mining tokens. But most of the course content was plagiarized.
Owner Ruja fled in 2017 after an order was issued for her custody. Bulgarian authorities searched the firm’s headquarters in 2018. Her brother, Konstantin, supplanted her as the head of the firm. The co-founder of OneCoin was also detained in 2018, and Ignatov was imprisoned in 2019.
Konstantin admitted to defrauding people and laundering funds. They also admitted that not only was OneCoin never exchanged, but it couldn’t be used to buy something.
When the authorities examined OneCoin, they uncovered the hidden lies beneath attractive festive gatherings and activities to draw individuals onto the network.
Authorities determined that the tokens have never been mined, unlike standard cryptocurrencies. However, engineers deliberately coded the coins to modify their worth. They even found that it didn’t genuinely feature blockchain technology, indicating the transactions might be readily monitored. OneCoin’s operators distributed fraudulent coins to its subscribers, stealing their tough-earned cash.
Conclusion
With just a few years under it, the cryptocurrency industry has already had its share of scams, with OneCoin being the most prominent. OneCoin was a Ponzi fraud disguised as a virtual currency. The hoax drew thousands of participants over an approximately 2-year span. Ruja Ignatova encouraged individuals in 175 countries to acquire educational resources and OneCoin coins.
As a replacement for Bitcoin, Ruja marketed OneCoin as a much more optimized and effective alternative. But the reality is that OneCoin’s founders plundered almost $4 billion from participants throughout the globe over many years. Something that was described as “something enormous” proved to be a massive hoax.
