A major OTC (over-the-counter) scam has been exposed in the cryptocurrency world.
This scam, which was carried out on many tokens, including important projects such as SUI, NEAR, Axelar, SEI, evaporated more than $ 50 million in investors’ money in total. The incident was carried out through a carefully planned Ponzi scheme that lasted months and was organized through Telegram groups.
The scam took place after a long process and complex stages. We have explained it in detail below.
Building Trust (November 2024 – January 2025)
In November 2024, various VC (venture capital) groups and private investment pools began offering Tier-1 OTC token deals on Telegram that appeared to be “trustworthy.” Tokens of popular projects such as APT, SEI, SWELL were sold on a forward basis with discounts of up to 50%.
These deals were initially delivered on time, investors received their tokens in full, and the system gained trust. These success stories attracted more people to the system.
Magnification of Emphasis (February – June 2025)
As of February, the number and scope of offers expanded. New projects such as SUI, NEAR, Axelar, GRASS were launched. Same conditions, same discounts, but higher sales. This was the period when the emphasis reached its peak.
Ignoring Warnings (May 2025)
In May, several industry leaders issued public warnings. Eman Abio of the SUI team openly warned against fake OTC deals.
Lucian Mincu of MultiversX made a similar statement, but these warnings were ignored by investors.
Collapse and Confession (June 2025)
The last deal, made on June 1, was offered through the Fluid token. However, token distributions for previous deals have stopped since then.
On June 19, Aza Ventures, one of the pioneers of the system, made a public statement and announced that they too had been defrauded.
In their statement, they stated that the person named “Source 1” who carried out these transactions established a Ponzi scheme. Aza Ventures stated that the previous agreements were real; however, the subsequent payments were made with the money of new investors.
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So which tokens were used:
- Erken Dönem (Kasım 2024 – Ocak 2025):
- Aptos, Sei, Swell, Coti, Kava, Fluid, OG, Aethir
- Sonraki Dönem (Şubat – Haziran 2025):
- SUI, NEAR, Aptos, Sei, Highstreet, Altlayer, Grass, Movement, Bio, Sandbox, Graph, Ronin, Axelar, Celestia, LayerZero, Renzo, Beam, Conflux, Wormhole, Arkham, Adventure Gold, Immutable, Vana, Berachain, Virtuals, EGLD, Fluid
Aza Ventures claims to know the identity of “Source 1,” who they claim is responsible for the scam. He is allegedly of Indian origin and the founder of a crypto project already listed on Binance. However, the name has not been made public; the company stated that they are still in talks to recover the money privately.
The total financial losses from the scam exceed $50 million. Some individual investors lost over $1 million.
*This is not investment advice.
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