Karl Sebastian Greenwood
Co-founder and lead promoter of OneCoin. Pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2023 to 20 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $300 million.
Bio
Karl Sebastian Greenwood co-founded OneCoin with Ruja Ignatova and served as its top distributor. The U.S. DOJ described OneCoin as "one of the largest fraud schemes ever perpetrated". [1][2]
Legal outcome
Greenwood pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 2023 to 20 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $300 million. [1][2]
Bracketed numbers refer to the numbered sources listed below.
Sources (2)
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.
Evolved Apes (NFT)ProjectsAn NFT collection launched on OpenSea in September 2021 that promised a fighting game. About a week later its anonymous developer 'Evil Ape' vanished with 798 ETH (~$2.7M). In June 2024 U.S. prosecutors charged three U.K. nationals over the scheme.
This page was last updated on Jun 15, 2026. View revision history.