The cryptocurrency world is a lot like the wild, wild west. Pioneers and trailblazers are breaking new ground to serve humanity. All the while, scalliwags and ne’er-do-wells are seizing the opportunity to exploit those courageous enough to venture down the path. 

There are incredible tales both of untold wealth and unfathomable loss as the crypto story is still being written. One of these tales was thoroughly documented by author, Jamie Bartlett. His book, THE MISSING CRYPTOQUEEN: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It, is a wild, true crime tale that you must hear about. 

Tales such as this prompt us to seek solutions, and as a victim of crypto theft himself, Jamie has thoughts on how regulation might curb at least some of the criminal behavior. He joins us today to discuss all this and more on episode #632 of The Bad Crypto Podcast. 

FULL SHOW NOTES: badco.in/632 

TIME STAMPS:

00:00 - Intro

05:17 - We feel like the best podcasts tell the best stories. As the author of multiple books, your newest one is called The Missing Cryptoqueen: The Billion Dollar Cryptocurrency Con and the Woman Who Got Away with It. Tell us more. 

05:56 - In 2014, Dr Ruja Ignatova says she has launched the next revolutionary cryptocurrency, better than Bitcoin, using multi-level marketing. As a highly credentialed financial and legal professional, Dr. Ruja scammed millions in the crypto community of about $4bln in OneCoin. 

09:23 - It was the second biggest crypto in 2016, right? Bigger than Ethereum? Not exactly…

12:00 - Did she know it was a scam? 

13:18 - The unraveling of the scheme and Dr. Ruja’s disappearance. 

14:50 - Is there a screenplay of this story? A biopic? A Netflix series in the works? 

15:50 - OneCoin was never listed on exchanges; the only place people could buy or sell was through the official website via multi-level marketing. 

16:44 - How the OneCoin cryptocurrency multi-level marketing approach scammed millions of crypto novice people in a nascent industry.  

18:32 - How did OneCoin work? 

26:38 - Are we any closer to finding Dr. Ruja? What do you think has happened? Has she gone off and gotten plastic surgery, dropped weight, dyed her hair? 

29:00 - Why is that your theory of her whereabouts? 

30:46 - You wrote a book called The People vs Tech, which won the Orwell Prize and others. What can you say about the state of Big Tech right now versus the People, ‘cause it is not looking very good for team us? 

32:23 - Do you regularly seek out other scams to help warn people, or did this just catch your attention to pursue and write about this? 

38:28 - Is one-coin.org still the same OneCoin, or is there another? This is funny… 

39:50 - If you see Dr. Ruja out, please report. 

40:30 - What are you working on now?

41:15 - Outro

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DISCLAIMER:
Do your own due diligence and research. Joel Comm and Travis Wright are NOT FINANCIAL ADVISORS. We are sharing our journey with you as we learn more about this crazy little thing called cryptocurrency. We make NO RECOMMENDATIONS. Don't take anything we say as gospel. Do not come to our homes with pitchforks because you lost money by listening to us.

We only share with you what we are learning and what we are investing it. We will never "pump or dump" any cryptocurrencies. Take what we say with a grain of salt. You must research this stuff on your own! Just know that we will always strive for RADICAL TRANSPARENCY with any show associations.

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