More than a decade after the OneCoin scam began, victims of the $4 billion cryptocurrency fraud scheme are now eligible for compensation from a $40 million fund of seized assets, as announced by the US Department of Justice. The international scheme, which operated from 2014 to 2019, was led by co-founders Ignatova and Karl Sebastian Greenwood, and involved a global multi-level-marketing network that sold a fraudulent cryptocurrency. The scheme, which defrauded up to 3.4 million investors worldwide, was found to have manipulated the perceived value of OneCoin through automatic coin generation, and ultimately collapsed in 2017. The DOJ has described OneCoin as 'one of the largest global fraud schemes in history', with victims worldwide losing over $4 billion.
In 2022, Greenwood admitted to federal wire fraud and money laundering charges, and in June 2024, the DOJ offered a $5 million reward for the missing Cryptqueen. US Attorney Jay Clayton stated that the founders of OneCoin 'sold a lie disguised as cryptocurrency', and that the DOJ will continue to prioritize seizing criminal proceeds and returning money to victims. This development comes shortly after the FTX Recovery Trust announced its plan to distribute $2.2 billion to creditors, as part of a broader effort to recover assets for users of the collapsed crypto trading platform.