Forsage
A 'decentralized' smart-contract investment platform the SEC called a 'textbook pyramid and Ponzi scheme', raising $300M+ (DOJ cited ~$340M). The SEC charged 11 people in 2022.
Also known as: Forsage, Forsage.io
Summary
Forsage was marketed as a "decentralized" smart-contract investment platform on Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Tron. The SEC charged 11 people in 2022, describing it as a "textbook pyramid and Ponzi scheme" that raised more than $300 million; a 2023 DOJ indictment cited about $340 million. [1][2]
Mechanism
Per the SEC, Forsage sold no actual product; investors mainly profited by recruiting others, and new-investor funds paid earlier investors through smart contracts. [1][2]
People
The four founders — Russian nationals last known to be in Russia, Georgia, and Indonesia — were indicted in 2023. [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.
