On June 20, Coin World reported that Ravindra Kumar, the founder of Self Chain, has recently been accused of participating in an off-market cryptocurrency scam worth $50 million, in which he defrauded investors through false token transactions. Kumar issued a statement on the X platform strongly denying the allegations, stating that the claims are 'completely unfounded' and that his legal team is preparing to draft a response statement.
The scam involves off-market trading of tokens from several well-known projects, including Sui, Near, Axelar, and Sei. Mohammed Waseem, CEO of Indian off-market brokerage Aza Ventures, revealed that his company inadvertently facilitated dozens of fraudulent transactions over the past few months. Although the initial transactions were legitimate, they later evolved into a Ponzi scheme, with the seller using 'Source 1' as a code name, implementing fraud through delayed token delivery. Waseem claims to have contacted Indian authorities and has promised to refund the deceived investors, but his personal funds have been depleted due to advances. Currently, 'Source 1' has promised to start returning funds by the end of June. It is worth noting that before the scam was exposed, several industry figures, including Adeniyi Abiodun, co-founder of Mysten Labs, and Lucian Mincu, co-founder of MultiversX, had repeatedly warned about the existence of false off-market transactions.