Summary 

• OneCoin co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years in prison for running a fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme that cost millions of investors billions of dollars.
• Promoted as a "Bitcoin killer," OneCoin was worthless, and Greenwood personally pocketed over $300 million from the scam.
• Operating mainly between 2014 and 2016, the Bulgaria-based OneCoin raked in more than $4 billion from at least 3.5 million victims.

On September 12, Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Karl Sebastian Greenwood, the co-founder of OneCoin, will spend 20 years in prison. Greenwood's sentencing follows his involvement in the OneCoin pyramid scheme that cost millions of people billions of dollars.

According to a statement from the US Justice Department, OneCoin was a "fraudulent cryptocurrency marketed and sold to millions of victims around the world, resulting in billions of dollars of losses." 

Greenwood and his co-founders, including fugitive Ruja Ignatova (CryptoQueen), tricked people into thinking they were investing in a legitimate financial opportunity. They touted OneCoin as a "Bitcoin killer" and promised a "financial revolution." In reality, OneCoin was worthless.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, "Greenwood and his co-conspirators conned unsuspecting victims out of billions of dollars." He added that Greenwood personally gained over $300 million from this deceit.

Founded in 2014 by Greenwood and Ignatova, OneCoin was based in Sofia, Bulgaria. It expanded into the United States around 2015. Between the last quarter of 2014 and the last quarter of 2016, the scam gathered over $4 billion from at least 3.5 million people.

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