The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It

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175 nations, 4 billion {dollars}, one rip-off: the thrilling rise and fall of the largest cryptocurrency con in historical past and the lady behind all of it

In 2016, on stage at Wembley Area in entrance of hundreds of adoring followers, Dr. Ruja Ignatova promised her followers a monetary revolution. The long run, she mentioned, belonged to cryptocurrencies similar to Bitcoin. And the Oxford-educated, self-styled cryptoqueen vowed that she had invented the Bitcoin Killer. OneCoin wouldn’t solely earn its buyers untold fortunes; it will change the world.

By March 2017, greater than $4 billion had been invested in OneCoin in nations all around the globe. However by October 2017, Ruja Ignatova had disappeared, and it slowly grew to become clear that her revolutionary cryptocurrency was not all it appeared. Fortune was left asking, “Is OneCoin the largest monetary fraud in historical past?”

In The Lacking Cryptoqueen, acclaimed tech journalist Jamie Bartlett tells the story he started in his smash hit BBC podcast, getting into the murky worlds of little-regulated cryptocurrencies and multilevel advertising schemes. By means of a globe-crossing investigation into the felony underworlds, corrupt governments, and the super-rich, he reveals a really trendy story of intrigue, techno-hype and herd insanity that allowed OneCoin to develop into a million-person pyramid scheme—the place, on the prime, buyers have been making hundreds of thousands and, on the backside, folks have been placing their livelihoods in danger. It’s the within story of the neatest and largest rip-off of the twenty first century—and the genius behind it, who remains to be on the run.