The Avenger of the Crypto Ponzi Scheme

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So that’s my money gone, read the top comment in mid October. Lesson learned.

For Mr. de Hek, everything about the Hyper Empire seems suspicious. On its website and in promotional videos, HyperFund explained that investors could purchase subscriptions starting at $300 and earn rewards that would accumulate in their account daily. These rewards took the form of HU, the internal trading currency, which was supposed to be at par with the US dollar.

And why would everyone’s HU triple in 600 days? Because putative HyperFund founders Ryan Xu and Sam Lee, portrayed on promo sites as a pair of blockchain superstar entrepreneurs, were going to pour all that money into promising and profitable crypto projects, which they believed would serve ultimately 30 million customers. They also said the company would be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

This seemed plausible to many. Whoever ran HyperFund tapped into the crypto craze, which to most people at the time was a bewilderingly complex technology that seemed to be hitting the millionaires. But HyperFund was never made public, and the only product sold was HyperFund membership. Members who recruited new members received a share of their recruit rewards, a perennial feature from pyramid schemes and an occasional feature from Ponzi schemes.

For Mr. de Hek, this sale of memberships, in the absence of any proceeds, was a blazing red flag that he had seen all too often. Before the pandemic, he started Elite: Six, a company that hosted twice-weekly in-person networking meetings for small business owners in Christchurch. Those who paid $60 a month could show up and pitch their business. Mr. de Hek reviewed every pitch and in more than a few cases the main product was a membership fee, which entitled him to recruit others and get a reduction in their membership fee. . Etc.

These were essentially multi-level marketing companies, Mr. de Hek said. I hate them with a passion. I never let them in.

To understand this passion and his mission to eliminate crypto Ponzi schemes, you need to know something about Mr. de Heks’ childhood. Like everyone in his family, he was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness.

From the age of 5, I was knocking on strangers’ doors, telling them that fires and earthquakes happen for a reason, that the world is ending soon, he recalled, describing learning that only believers would survive the impending destruction of the earth. .

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