BitClub Network
A Bitcoin 'mining pool' scheme (2014–2019) that the U.S. DOJ says took at least $722M by selling shares in non-existent mining returns and rewarding recruitment.
Also known as: BitClub Network, BitClub
Summary
BitClub Network operated from April 2014 to December 2019, soliciting money for shares in purported Bitcoin "mining pools" and rewarding investors for recruiting others. The DOJ says it took at least $722 million from investors. [1][2]
Mechanism
According to the DOJ, operators showed investors false "mining earnings" figures. In a cited message, a co-conspirator described inflating displayed earnings as "ponzi territory". [2]
People
Several defendants were charged in December 2019; programmer Silviu Balaci pleaded guilty in 2020. [1][2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (2)
See also
World Liberty Financial (WLFI) — Justin Sun token freezeProjectsWLFI, a DeFi project linked to Donald Trump and his family, blacklisted/froze the wallet of major investor Justin Sun in Sept 2025 — ~540–595M unlocked WLFI tokens (~$107M) plus ~2.4B locked. Sun sued, alleging an undisclosed admin 'blacklist backdoor'; WLFI denied it and threatened a countersuit. The dispute is ongoing.
Gala Games exploitTokensOn May 20, 2024 an attacker abused a privileged minter account on the GALA token contract to mint 5 billion GALA (≈$200M+ nominal) and dumped ~600M of them for ~$22M of ETH before Gala froze the address. Gala Games called it an internal access-control failure; the attacker later returned the ~$22M.
This page was last updated on Jun 15, 2026. View revision history.
