Finiko
A Russia-based crypto Ponzi led by Instagram influencer Kirill Doronin that took in over $1.5B in Bitcoin from ~800,000+ deposits (Dec 2019–Aug 2021), promising up to 30% monthly returns. It collapsed in July 2021 when withdrawals stopped; Doronin and associates were arrested.
Also known as: Finiko, Kirill Doronin, Ilgiz Shakirov
Summary
Finiko presented itself as a high-yield "autonomous" investment system, inviting users to deposit Bitcoin or Tether for promised monthly returns of up to 30%, and later launched its own token. Per Chainalysis, it received more than $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin across 800,000+ deposits between December 2019 and August 2021. [1][2]
Collapse and arrests
Finiko stopped honoring withdrawals and collapsed in July 2021, wiping out an estimated $1.5B from victims across Russia and neighboring states. Russian authorities arrested founder Kirill Doronin and key associates; one founding member was later sentenced to prison, and Doronin was pursued/extradited in connection with the case. Criminal proceedings are ongoing; allegations against individuals not yet convicted remain allegations. [2][3][4]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (4)
- Crypto Scams: 2021 Rug Pulls… (Finiko received $1.5B+ in Bitcoin) — Chainalysis
- As Incomes Fall, Russians Are Once Again Falling for Pyramid Schemes — The Moscow Times
- Founder of Russia's massive crypto pyramid Finiko deported from UAE — Cryptopolitan
- Russian Court Jails Finiko Crypto Scam Exec for Three Years — Cryptonews
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.
- HEX / PulseChain (Richard Heart)
This page was last updated on Jun 15, 2026. View revision history.