Key Insights
- The flagship cryptocurrency is nearly two decades old, and there’s no better time to review some of the scariest crypto stories.
- A crypto CEO named Steven Reece Lewis (who doesn’t seem to exist) surfaced between 2020 and 2021 and defrauded investors for $2 billion.
- Since the FTX collapse, a mysterious Bitcoin whale has been buying around 100 BTC almost every day for two years.
- There are conflicting reports about CryptoQueen Ruja Ignatova disappearing, being murdered, and simply resurfacing.
- A ghost from Canada’s QuadrigaCX is walking around with $190 million in stolen investor funds.
Bitcoin is now sixteen years old!
There is no better time than Bitcoin White Paper Day (which coincides with Halloween) to reminisce on some of the scariest stories that could spook even the boldest investor.
In the nearly twenty years of Bitcoin’s existence, several occurrences have popped up—some of them confusing, many of them mysterious, and a select few are outright scary.
Here are five of the most unnerving stories from crypto history to celebrate Halloween.
1. The CEO Who Never Existed
Ghosts are pretty real—at least in the world of crypto.
In 2020, a company known as HyperVerse emerged. Between its launch and 2024, it promised its investors massive returns on investment.
The interesting part about HyperVerse is that it was backed by what seemed to be solid leadership under its CEO, Steven Reece Lewis.
The man known as Steven Reece Lewis
Source: Twitter
Lewis was introduced as the company’s CEO in December 2021 and even had an impressive resume from companies like Goldman Sachs and Adobe.
According to the Guardian, he even had a graduate pedigree from the University of Cambridge.
Several celebrities, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and actor Chuck Norris, endorsed Hyperverse through online videos.
However, when the scam bubble burst, thousands of investors lost around $2 billion in US dollars.
The scary part is that it was discovered that absolutely zero of Lewis’s credentials were valid.
He had no academic records, employment history, or even a digital footprint—Lewis didn’t seem to exist at all.
How did a ghost emerge as the CEO of a company and vanish into thin air with $2 billion in user funds?
2. “Mr. 100”— The Mystery Bitcoin Whale
Crypto has its own urban legend, and this one is named “Mr 100”.
Mr 100 is the nickname for an unknown Bitcoin whale who has steadily amassed more than 70,000 Bitcoins over the last two years since the collapse of FTX.
Mr 100’s wallet
The most interesting thing about this whale is that it operates almost mechanically—buying exactly 100 Bitcoin nearly every day.
Experts generally believe that “Mr. 100” could be an institution based in Hong Kong. Others believe Mr 100 is a sovereign wealth fund from the Middle East.
Adding to this mystery is how these Bitcoin buys suspiciously happen during periods of market turmoil.
With each transaction, the legend of “Mr. 100” grows.
The crypto community continues to wonder: who is behind this wallet, and what could they be planning?
What happens if Mr 100 decides to dump all 71.9 Bitcoin (worth $4.9 billion) someday?
3. Was the CryptoQueen Murdered?
Ruja Ignatova, known as the “Cryptoqueen,” founded OneCoin in 2014.
Ignatova claimed that this new cryptocurrency would rival Bitcoin (keep in mind that BTC was only five years old at the time).
OneCoin amassed around $5 billion from the hype before authorities exposed it as a massive Ponzi scheme.
Ruja Ignatova, a.k.a. ‘Cryptoqueen’, has been added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for allegedly defrauding investors of more than $4 billion through the OneCoin cryptocurrency company pic.twitter.com/fUL5Dmic46
— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) June 30, 2022
In 2017, Ignatova boarded a flight from Bulgaria to Greece—and simply vanished.
But it didn’t stop there.
Reports later surfaced that Ignatova was eventually murdered by Hristoforos Nikos Amanatidis—a Bulgarian drug lord, also known as Taki, who used OneCoin to launder money.
Leaked documents also showed that Taki started to see Ignatova as a liability, considering the mounting attention she drew from law enforcement.
Taki also didn’t stop at murdering Ignatova—He reportedly dismembered and dumped her body in the Ionian Sea between Italy and Greece.
Interestingly, a while later, a London property filing from the British government showed that Igantova had resurfaced.
Will we ever know the truth about what happened to the missing CryptoQueen?
4. Did QuadrigaCX’s Founder Take his Secrets to the Grave?
Gerald Cotten, the young CEO of one of Canada’s once-largest crypto exchanges, QuadrigaCX, died in 2018.
However, his death left more questions than answers, as we will soon see.
Cotten traveled to India, presumably for philanthropic purposes—and then mysteriously died from Crohn’s disease.
For unrelated but useful context, Crohn’s disease is a chronic bowel disease (IBD) that causes intestinal inflammation.
What made Cotten’s death so unsettling is that he was the only one with access to QuadrigaCX’s cold wallets.
Conveniently, these wallets held approximately $190 million in client funds.
In December 2018, Gerald Cotten, CEO of QuadrigaCX, died in India,
leaving behind a massive mystery and $190M in missing crypto.
Here's what happened next pic.twitter.com/ukYxBcclym
— Max | One Click (@maxyamp) July 11, 2024
Investigations into his death revealed that right before “allegedly passing,” Cotten transferred huge amounts of crypto from QuadrigaCX to personal accounts.
Moreover, Cotten’s will was also signed on 27 November 2018, twelve days before he allegedly died.
All five of the exchange’s cold wallet addresses were also empty at the time of his death and had not held any crypto since April 2018.
Investors now wonder—did Cotten fake his own death?
Did Cotten fake his own death?
If he did, is a dead man now walking around with hundreds of millions in investor funds?
5. Man Sentenced to 11 Thousand Years In Jail
This next story isn’t quite scary in the conventional sense—or maybe it is.
According to recent reports, Faruk Fatih Özer, founder of the Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, is now serving one of the longest prison sentences in crypto history.
➠ /2 Thodex ($2 billion scam)
Thodex, a Turkish crypto exchange launched in 2017 by Faruk Fatih Özer, shut down in April 2021 when bitcoin was $62k.
Özer fled with over $2 billion from 100,000+ investors for personal use and faces an 11,196-years prison sentence for fraud. pic.twitter.com/yp6T3qzOPL
— Nonzee (@0xNonceSense) October 30, 2024
Özer, who is 27 years old, reportedly copied the entire exchange’s asset reserve (worth $2 billion) into a flash drive and ran to Albania.
His sudden disappearance left Thodex users in shock as their assets vanished.
The resulting panic also forced Interpol to issue a red notice, which led to a nationwide search in Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, and North Macedonia.
Özer was eventually captured and extradited to Turkey, getting a staggering 11,000-year sentence with two of his siblings—a staggering 11,000 years for each.
This (almost unreasonably) long sentence is a result of Turkey’s abolition of the death penalty in 2004.
Özer’s sentence is also considerably longer than that of Adnan Oktar, a TV cult preacher who was jailed for 8,658 years with ten disciples in 2022.
Disclaimer: Voice of Crypto aims to deliver accurate and up-to-date information but will not be responsible for any missing facts or inaccurate information. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile financial assets, so research and make your own financial decisions.
