A $40 million compensation fund has been established for victims of the $4 billion OneCoin cryptocurrency scam, as announced by the US Department of Justice. The fund consists of seized assets and will provide relief to those affected by the international scheme, which operated from 2014 to 2019. Co-founders Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, along with others, orchestrated the global fraud through a multi-level marketing network, deceiving up to 3.4 million investors worldwide. The scheme, deemed one of the largest global frauds in history, involved the sale of a fraudulent cryptocurrency that did not exist on any blockchain.
After the scheme's collapse in 2017, the DOJ has continued to pursue the seizure of criminal proceeds, with the aim of returning funds to the victims. In a statement, US Attorney Jay Clayton emphasized the DOJ's commitment to recovering assets and prioritizing victim compensation, stating that OneCoin's founders 'sold a lie disguised as cryptocurrency, costing victims over $4 billion worldwide.' The compensation process follows a recent announcement by the FTX Recovery Trust to distribute $2.2 billion to creditors, as part of a broader effort to recover assets for users of the collapsed crypto trading platform.