--- title: "CEO of $1.3 Billion Crypto Firm Appears to Be Entirely Fake" description: "The CEO of a crypto Ponzi scheme appears, much like the promises his firm made to investors, to be completely fake. " date: "2024-01-04" modified: "2024-01-04" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/crypto-firm-alleged-fake-ceo" categories: - "Blockchain" - "Cryptocurrency" - "Future Society" tags: - "fake news" - "hyperverse" - "metaverse" - "scams" --- # CEO of $1.3 Billion Crypto Firm Appears to Be Entirely Fake ![The CEO of a crypto Ponzi scheme appears, much like the promises his firm made to investors, to be completely fake. ]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* The CEO of a crypto [Ponzi scheme]() appears, much like the promises his firm made, to be completely fake. As [*The Guardian* reports](), Steven Reece Lewis was put forth with all kinds of bona fides in 2021 when the HyperVerse metaverse platform/crypto fund announced that he would be taking over as its CEO. Per the paper's investigation, however, there's just one problem: Reece Lewis doesn't appear to actually exist. Like most Ponzi schemes, HyperVerse made deceptively simple promises that were too good to be true. Investors could put in as much or as little money as they wanted and were told they would receive minimum returns of 0.5 percent per day. According to the [Chainalysis blockchain firm](), HyperVerse brought in an estimated $1.3 billion by early 2022, and no returns on investment ever materialized for the people duped into giving the fund their money. Last month, the [publication's Australian arm reported]() that HyperVerse is little more than a crypto-fied pyramid scheme that has bilked trusting Aussies out of millions. Besides warnings from regulators in neighboring New Zealand, *The Guardian Australia*'s conclusion is based on its own investigation, which found that HyperVerse founders Sam Lee and Zijing "Ryan" Xu have been involved in a number of seemingly fraudulent crypto projects. The veracity of HyperVerse's get-rich-quick claims has been under scrutiny since 2021, when the United Kingdom's [Financial Conduct Authority suggested]() that HyperFund, its original iteration, was a scam and urged citizens to watch out for it. Not long after the UK regulator's scam alert was released, the [fund collapsed](). In December of that same year, the report explains, HyperFund rebranded to HyperVerse and Reece Lewis was announced as the company's new CEO during an online launch event at which a man going by that name spoke. By January 2022, video endorsements from celebs like Chuck Norris and Apple's Steve Wozniak — both of whom, as the [*Behind MLM* blog points out](), sell customizable videos on the Cameo platform — began cropping up to shill the company. According to HyperVerse promotional materials reviewed by *The Guardian*, Reece Lewis was said to have matriculated at both the University of Leeds and Cambridge in the UK, to have worked at Goldman Sachs, and to have sold a startup to Adobe before being tapped to lead the rebranded crypto-cum-metaverse scheme. But when the outlet's reporters reached out to the aforementioned institutions, none of them had ever heard of the man, and there's no record of him in company registries in the UK or US. The only digital footprint for the man that exists at all is a [Twitter profile]() created a month prior to the December 2021 rebrand, and its last post — a retweet at that — was made during the summer of 2022. There are, of course, tons of outstanding questions. Who *was* the man who spoke at the HyperVerse rebrand? Why pretend to build a metaverse to sell a crypto scam? And, perhaps most importantly, why the hell are people still falling for these farces? **More on crypto scams:** [*SantaCon Spent Charity Funds on Crypto, Burning Man*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()