This book was so fascinating! I had never heard of this case before but I love true crime so I was stoked to read it. I also was very interested because the scammer was a female and I tend to enjoy books about women more than men.

I kept thinking "this would be such an interesting podcast" then realized.. it is one. a better podcast than book unless you like being able to log it as a book LOL. I love Bartlett's reporting but didn't feel like this needed a book form you know.

This was such an interesting read. I knew nothing of the story going into this so it was a fun read. I really liked how the author went into detail and gave a good run down of everything that happened. Overall, if you're into true crime or just enjoy a great story, I would definitely recommend checking this out!

A fascinating true-life story that reads like a thriller. I have enjoyed Jamie Bartlett's other books of reportage and this is even better - it's so compelling, there are some jaw-dropping moments! An excellent and gripping non-fiction book that I would happily recommend to many types of readers.

For fans of Bad Blood, Billion Dollar Whale, Billion Dollar Loser, and My Friend Anna. Highly recommend this shocking account of the ‘Cryptoqueen.’
Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this arc.

This was a great read to see how people can get caught up in the next big thing as the book points out that these people have FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). You learn about Dr. Ruja Ignatova who is Bulgarian born, a Oxford Graduate who had multiple degrees who is fluent in multiple languages who is on a mission to change the world and be a millionaire before she is thirty. Her idea to get there is to develop a cryptocurrency that will be for the common man. Her sales pitch also is that this will be bigger than Bitcoin. Not only does this book introduce you to cryptocurrency but also MLM (Mid-level Marketing) you know the kind Herbalife, Amway and Tupperware to name some of the successful ones. Her company was anomaly in the MLM industry because it was run by a woman and populated by men. The drive and success the first of the group is amazing along with amount of money it was generating even still today even though most people do not understand the technology, but they had to have it. People from around the world were so desperate to become a part of this they sell their houses, land and even livestock to get every last penny into this. Many as you will see believe this is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme, the most famous is the one ran by Bernie Madoff. Reading about the conventions they had around remind you of those attending a fanatical religious meeting they were so obsessed with obtaining these coins and again these were people all over the world. In my opinion this will give you some insight on how these worlds work . This is an informative and adventure some read.

Fascinating! The Missing Cryptoqueen is full of intrigue and suspense. It explores how a new cryptocurrency became a Ponzi scheme, defrauding many of their financial security. The book is full of interesting details how the scheme evolved, the people involved, and the machinations used to promote the currency. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the privilege of reading an eye-opening book.

So much more than the podcast!

I loved The missing Cryptoqueen podcast and I thought this book would be just like the podcast, and that would be OK because I could use a refresher but it was so much more and better! I may not understand cryptocurrency, still, but I understand MLMs and love a takedown.

Bartlett tracks OneCoin from before its roots, i.e. Bitcoin and whatever Sebastian Greenwood was doing, through its unbelievable rise, to whatever is going today. He does a good job of explaining Ruja's financial machinations, shell companies, holdings, Cayman Islands, etc etc. that can be so confusing, and while I couldn't tell you what it all is, I feel like I understand it better. He introduces us to the cast of crazy characters that made OneCoin and the people working to unmask it.

This is exciting, easy to hard, and impossible to put down.

What’s the difference between a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, and a multi-level marketing business like Herbalife? One is a scam and a cult that will consume your life, leave you unable to think or talk about anything else to a degree that alienates you from all your friends, and leave you much poorer than you were when you started dabbling in it. The other sells vitamins and stuff.

Okay, maybe that’s going a bit too far. The jury is very much out on whether cryptocurrency is just a passing fad or something that will revolutionise the way we spend, save and even govern ourselves. (A third possibility, which is that it will stick around on the side without completely changing the world, is a dark horse.) But even crypto backers have to concede that a shiny new, futuristic, much-talked-about and barely comprehensible product really lends itself to fly-by-night get-rick-quick schemes and fraudsters.

OneCoin is probably the most notorious example of a cryptocurrency scam. And its co-founder, Ruja Ignatova, has spent the last few years on the run as a result. Her rise, fall and disappearance was covered in an excellent BBC podcast, The Missing Crypto Queen, which has now been adapted and expanded into a compulsively readable book by its host

The most powerful force in the universe isn’t gravity nor nuclear fusion nor Boban Marjanović. It’s FOMO - fear of missing out. That’s what has brought me back to Twitter after I’ve quit and deleted my account (I’m still resisting so far, but the lure is still there, like just one cigarette for old time’s sake) and what has led me to drop a little money on crypto in my Weathsimple account.

Hey, maybe it will come back. At least I didn’t throw everything I had at crypto, like some people now learning about market volatility and investment diversification the hard way.

The Bulgarian-born, German-raised Ignatova’s stroke of genius was pairing crypto FOMO with multi-level marketing. Some of Europe’s most successful MLM salespeople - the tiny handful atop the pyramid legitimate business who actually money at it - jumped aboard early, and before long, buyers around the world were throwing their good money into what was dubbed a “Bitcoin killer.”

To get around some legal hurdles, OneCoin officially sold “information packages” about investing in cryptocurrency (at least one of which was plagiarised from a …For Dummies book) with some of this supposedly revolutionary cryptocurrency as a bonus. Ignatova and her associates never really explained how it worked, but many starry-eyed crypto novices were dazzled by promises of untold wealth- the kind early investors in Bitcoin eventually earned - and glitzy conventions which sometimes featured A-list entertainers and sponsorship from legitimate companies.

And there was the alleged Forbes magazine cover shown above, which added legitimacy to Ignatova’s scheme. In reality it was just a special advertising supplement in the Bulgarian edition, but OneCoin salespeople were more than willing to let their marks believe otherwise. Surely a respected business publication would never put a fraud artist on its cover, right?

While Ignatova was announcing that even more OneCoins were going to be distributed and that the value of each coin would immediately double - Siri, how does supply and demand work? - a few online MLM watchdogs were keeping an eye on the OneCoin phenomenon. At least someone was, because many government regulators, especially in OneCoin’s home base of Bulgaria were asleep at the switch if not on the take. The tide really began to turn when a Swedish programmer was asked to create a blockchain for OneCoin. The thing is, this was after the company had already announced that its blockchain was up and running.

The whole thing began to unravel shortly thereafter, and many of Ignatova’s colleagues - including her brother - were arrested. But the crypto queen herself hopped on a Ryanair flight (who’d look for a business titan flying on freaking Ryanair, she must have been thinking) and hasn’t been conclusively found since then. As with most Ponzi schemes, the people who got in and out early made good money. The ones who came in later - including a distressing number of would-be investors from Africa - were the ones who got screwed.

Was OneCoin a legitimate business that got out of hand, or a scam from the beginning? Ignatova isn’t making herself available for interviews, so we can’t know for sure. There’s no doubt it became an elaborate, deliberate fraud, though, as illustrated by one experiment in which people bought and sold small amounts of OneCoin and compared it to the company “blockchain” listing, only to find their transactions conspicuously absent. It was little more than a random number generator.

Where is she now? The book drops a few hints, including the possibility that she may have fled in her expensive yacht and has been living mostly in international waters since then, but nothing definitive. Hopefully, this book will bring even more attention to the case and lead someone to recognise her.

And yet, even after OneCoin has been exposed as a massive fraud, the true believers are still out there, mostly in poorer countries where the story has received less coverage and some people are hungry for the American Bulgarian Dream. You won’t find it on one of these legitimate crypto exchanges plastered on F1 cars and advertised by Matt Damon, but there may be a friend of a friend of a friend out there willing to take your money for a product that may not exist.

Earlier in this piece, I linked to a YouTube video exposing OneCoin’s “educational” documents as plagiarised. At least one commenter wasn’t having it:

Even when people realize they’ve been scammed, it can take a long time for them to admit it. To anyone else, or to themselves.

The Missing Cryptoqueen is the fascinating tale of Dr. Ruja Ignatova, the self-proclaimed "Cryptoqueen". The Missing Cryptoqueen is for fans of Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. Dr. Ruja Ignatova is a con artist the likes of Bernie Madoff would envy. Her speeches, which captivated audiences, convinced investors to give her billions of dollars to her "new cryptocurrency". The Missing Cryptoqueen is well written and impeccably researched much like the podcast of the same name. However, the podcast and the book are very similar - which means if you've listened to the podcast you could feel the book is redundant (when compared to the podcast). As a stand alone book, the Missing Cryptoqueen is fascinating and is able to grab the reader's attention.

A captivating story of crypto and MLM. Perfect for fans of Bad Blood and Bad Vegan. If all of the recent crypto news has you wanting to learn more this book is a fun way to start!