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🚨🚨Another highly publicized fall from crypto grace. Vladimir Smerkis, co-founder of the highly publicized crypto game Blum on Telegram, was officially arrested on May 16, accused of fraud and already placed in detention. His arrest sent shockwaves through the crypto community and marked another chapter in a career filled with controversies and broken investor hopes.

For over a year, users of Blum—nicknamed the 'Hamster Kombat clone'—had been promised real cash rewards for frantically tapping and farming tokens in the game. Expectations peaked when the team hinted at a future token launch that never materialized. Instead, the news broke that Smerkis had quietly resigned from his position, and within 24 hours, authorities took action.

This wasn't the first time Smerkis was involved in crypto. His resume is a graveyard of unfulfilled promises. Before founding Blum, he played a key role in Binance's CIS operations, only to turn towards launching his own crypto projects after 2022. The pattern? Big promises, flashy marketing, and financial ruin for those who trusted him.

It all started with The Token Fund in 2017—one of the first crypto investment funds. Investors bought the internal token TKN with real crypto assets, attracted by promises of amplified returns. The fund raised over 8 million dollars, capitalized on the crypto bull market, then vanished in 2018, leaving investors empty-handed.

But the show didn't stop there. His next project, Tokenbox, attracted 7 million dollars in fresh investments. The TBX token hit major exchanges only to collapse almost instantly, disappearing into obscurity as quickly as it had arrived.

Now, with his arrest related to allegations of fraud amounting to at least 15 million dollars, the question arises—how many more of these crypto sagas will unfold before the industry learns its lesson?

Are we witnessing the final call of crypto charlatans, or will new faces take the stage to repeat the cycle of hype and heartbreak? #AMAGE community, how do you differentiate between a visionary builder and a master of vaporware?