Chen Bo
Founder of PlusToken, one of the largest crypto Ponzi schemes ever — a ~$2.25B+ pyramid (2018–2019) that drew 2M+ members with a fake 'arbitrage' return. A Chinese court convicted him and 13 others in 2020, with sentences up to 11 years.
Also known as: Chen Bo
Bio
Chen Bo set up PlusToken in early 2018 as a blockchain "wallet" that promised investment returns of 6–18% from a purported crypto-arbitrage business, recruiting members (who paid fees in cryptocurrencies) through social media and offline events. It was a Ponzi scheme — one of the largest ever — that absorbed cryptocurrencies worth at least ~$2.25 billion (some estimates far higher) from more than 2 million members. In January 2019, Chen and associates fled to Cambodia to continue the scheme before its mid-2019 collapse. [1][2]
Legal outcome
China's Yancheng Intermediate People's Court (Jiangsu) convicted Chen Bo and 13 other operators in late 2020, handing down prison terms of two to 11 years and large fines; authorities seized a vast crypto cache (≈194,775 BTC among other assets). [1][2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (2)
- Chinese cryptocurrency scam ringleaders jailed in US$2.25 billion PlusToken Ponzi — South China Morning Post
- Ringleaders of PlusToken Scam Jailed for Up to 11 Years — CoinDesk
See also
Luke BelmarIndividualsCryptocurrency influencer Luke Belmar (@lukebelmar on X) became the subject of controversy following allegations related to the promotion of a memecoin. Critics on social media alleged that Belmar used a series of posts referencing a forthcoming cryptocurrency project and a large-scale airdrop to generate interest in a token without explicitly identifying a specific contract address. Belmar published multiple posts discussing an upcoming memecoin, describing plans for what he characterized as a major airdrop and making comparisons to other cryptocurrency projects. Because no contract address was publicly provided, several tokens emerged claiming association with his statements. Critics alleged that this ambiguity enabled speculation around multiple tokens while avoiding a direct endorsement of any particular asset.
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.
