I remember when OneCoin rolled around, it was one of the many obvious scams. But this was just around the first real "public" crypto bull-run, so most buyers pr

I remember when OneCoin rolled around, it was one of the many obvious scams. But this was just around the first real "public" crypto bull-run, so most buyers probably didn't know what or how to purchase real crypto anyway. IIRC, it was basically just a website where you could purchase OneCoins - and your account would show a balance. If you tried to withdraw funds, you'd get stuck in some limbo. Like most MLM scams, they targeted people with extremely little knowledge. One hallmark of these scams, from that period, shared the aesthetics and strategy of old-school MLM scams: Hold some lavish show at the local conference room/hall, trick all the villagers and rural folks to these shows, and shower them in big hopes and dreams. Parade some successful "early investor" at the shows, wearing expensive suit and arriving in a rented lambo. Make him/her tell the crowd some emotional testimony on how to turn $1k into $1M, how it transformed their life. The person is of course not some early investor, but an accomplice. That's how these people went about it. They trawled countries in Asia, East-Europe, South America, etc. and went straight for the life savings of uninformed and naïve country folk. It should also be mentioned that many of the scammers around that time came directly from the previous MLM scams. Sometimes they changed their names, often times they all knew each others. Think of it as some kind of grifters network that spanned across EU and North-America. Before Crypto they were shilling BS membership programs, MLM products, timesharing flats, consumer product subscriptions, and what not.