A curated collection of the most devastating, creative, and heartbreaking scams in the history of cryptocurrency. Not financial advice. Just financial trauma.
The "Cryptoqueen" convinced the world she had created a Bitcoin killer. In reality, there was no blockchain, no code, and no coins. It was a classic Ponzi scheme sold through multi-level marketing seminars in stadiums.
Once the second-largest exchange in the world, FTX collapsed when it was revealed that customer funds were secretly lent to its sister company, Alameda Research, to cover bad bets.
While technically a collapse rather than a "dev ran away" rug, the result was the same. The algorithmic stablecoin UST lost its peg, causing LUNA to hyperinflate from $80 to fractions of a penny in days.
Famous for its "Volatility Bot" which promised 1% daily returns. It was fueled by celebrity shillers (like Floyd Mayweather) and loud YouTube influencers until regulators stepped in.
Riding the wave of the Netflix show, this token skyrocketed 23,000,000%. The catch? The code prevented anyone from selling except the developers. They drained the liquidity and vanished.
One of the fastest rugs in history. Less than 24 hours after launch, the liquidity pool was drained entirely. The project website went offline immediately after.
After raising funds for an NFT project, the devs tweeted: "We are sorry, we messed up." Then they deleted their Twitter and Discord and ran with the ETH.
The developer, known as "Evil Ape," simply stopped working, deleted the website, and drained the funds to play video games and gamble. He was later arrested in Germany.