OneCoin is a Ponzi scheme hidden under the guise of cryptocurrency. It has been prosecuted for pyramid scheme fraud and illegal money-raising, with victims all over the world. Its founder, Ruja Ignatova, has been listed as a wanted suspect for fraud and money laundering, becoming a fugitive in one of the world's largest financial fraud cases. The US government is currently offering a $5 million reward for her arrest.

In 2013, Ruja Ignatova from Bulgaria founded the so-called cryptocurrency OneCoin. Since 2014, she has been promoting OneCoin globally, often speaking at various large conferences to attract a large number of investors. She promised to give investors super high returns, and also encouraged investors to become distributors and earn commissions by developing downlines.

In October 2017, Ruja mysteriously disappeared. The police then launched an investigation and found that OneCoin was a large-scale financial fraud. In June 2022, Ruja was listed as one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Criminals, with a reward of $100,000. In June 2024, the US government increased the reward to $5 million, soliciting clues to arrest Ruja.

In just three years, OneCoin has attracted millions of people around the world to participate. The number and speed of such a large number of people are staggering. One of the reasons is that every sophisticated scam has a "powerful" leader, and OneCoin is no exception. In the official introduction of OneCoin, the founder Ruja holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Konstanz in Bulgaria, and a double doctorate in law from the University of Oxford and the University of Konstanz. She has served as the CEO and CFO of the largest fund management company in Bulgaria, with nearly 2 billion yuan in assets under management.

With these titles, Ruja traveled around the world to give speeches, and she was very successful. Every time she appeared, Ruja wore gorgeous clothes, expensive jewelry, and bright lipstick, just like the Queen of England. So much so that her fanatical followers gave her a resounding name: the Queen of Crypto.

During the presentation, Ruja claimed that OneCoin is a new type of cryptocurrency that uses revolutionary blockchain technology and can become a universal digital currency. He even called it the "Bitcoin killer" because it inherits Bitcoin's decentralization, its stock is completely determined by algorithms, and it uses KYC and records transactions to gain government approval.

But in fact, OneCoin itself has nothing to do with blockchain. It does not have relevant blockchain technology support, and the tokens it provides do not meet the characteristics of decentralization. There is only an SQL database set up on the website, and the data can be easily modified, which is inconsistent with the definition of blockchain being difficult to modify.

In addition, according to the official introduction, OneCoin is a second-generation virtual currency that can circulate freely, appreciate rapidly, and can make investors "get rich overnight." OneCoin adopts a membership system, and those who want to become a member of the "OneCoin" organization must pay a "threshold fee" ranging from 130 euros to 36,330 euros to purchase an activation code under the recommendation of an old member.

OneCoin divides profit into static mode and dynamic mode. In static mode, members can obtain corresponding OneCoins in a certain period after paying different levels of membership fees. In dynamic mode, members can obtain returns of different proportions by developing downline members.

Member grading, dynamic and static profit models, no matter from which direction you look at it, OneCoin is inseparable from the word "pyramid scheme". In fact, OneCoin has never been listed and traded on any exchange. It is a well-designed pyramid scheme scam. It has no real underlying technology and operating mechanism at all, and only relies on the funds of new joiners to provide benefits for old users. Ruja Ignatova and her gang have mastered the issuance rights of most of OneCoin. They maintain high dividends by constantly attracting new users. As the project operation becomes more and more difficult to maintain, OneCoin eventually collapsed and investors suffered heavy losses.

According to the investigation, OneCoin has more than 3 million investors worldwide, and has raised a total of about 5.6 billion US dollars. A large part of them are from China, with more than 2 million people, accounting for two-thirds, and the total transaction volume is as high as billions of US dollars. The number of members is so large that when the police counted, they found that there were 79 levels between the top three members of the organization in China. In foreign countries, OneCoin's membership level has reached an incredible 67,000 levels.

In 2014, OneCoin entered China under the name of "investment". It is reported that OneCoin's team in China has set up different membership levels, generally with 5 levels of membership, entry level, advanced level, professional level, executive level and tycoon level. The entry level investment is 975 yuan, 1,000 tokens and 50 mg of gold are given. The highest tycoon level investment is 37,725 yuan, 60,000 tokens and 2,500 mg of gold are given.

The OneCoin China team promised that OneCoin would only rise and not fall, and the increase would be "substantial". In addition, as long as OneCoin members introduced new users to buy OneCoin, 60% of the amount spent by the new users would be distributed as bonuses to old users. Faced with such "tempting" returns, more and more people fell into the trap, and a large amount of funds flowed into this scam. Finally, China became the largest market for OneCoin.

According to incomplete statistics, the total transaction volume of OneCoin investment in China is as high as billions of US dollars. Most of the participants are ordinary people who were deceived by the false propaganda of OneCoin and invested their savings and even loans in it, but ended up losing everything.

In addition to ordinary investors, OneCoin has also developed a large number of "agents" in China. These people develop downlines through various means and get commissions from them. Some agents pull their relatives and friends into it, destroying years of interpersonal relationships. It is reported that OneCoin's core team in China has as many as hundreds of people. They use various means to deceive investors and eventually turn OneCoin into an outrageous pyramid scheme.

Since 2017, victims have reported to the police, hoping to seek compensation through litigation. However, there are still a large number of investors who are deeply trapped and cannot extricate themselves, firmly believing that Ruja will reappear and lead OneCoin to glory. However, the police have not yet found the whereabouts of Ruja Ignatova (there are unconfirmed reports that she has been killed). In any case, Ruja has become a "desperate criminal" of the blockchain.

A lean camel is bigger than a horse. At present, there are still some criminals in China who take advantage of the information gap among the people, vigorously promote OneCoin, and make money in various ways. I hope that those investors who still insist on believing in OneCoin can wake up as soon as possible. OneCoin has been a complete scam from the beginning, and its founder Ruja Ignatova has now become a wanted criminal worldwide. The US government's $5 million reward is enough to show the severity of this scam.

In addition, I hope everyone can learn from this and stay away from all kinds of pyramid schemes and illegal financial activities, and protect their own property. And I believe that through everyone's joint efforts, we can prevent such scams from happening again, and maintain the healthy development of the cryptocurrency industry in the future.