Non-paywall link:
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/business/rainbowex-crypto-ponzi-scheme.html?smid=url-share" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/business/rainbowex-crypto...</a><p>> <i>Many were irate about bidding farewell to their massive RainbowEx “holdings,” as fictional as they were. Federico, a musician in his 30s, who was eager to maintain his privacy and spoke only on the condition that his last name was not used, was on the verge of pocketing a few thousand dollars when RainbowEx shut down.</i><p>> <i>He participated even though he figured out months earlier that RainbowEx was a sham, he said one afternoon sitting at a restaurant in San Pedro. All of the “trading” happened on the exchange and on some evenings, Federico would look at real-world movement of crypto that La China had recommended buying. On the blockchain — which is to say, in reality — the coins were not budging. The bump that La China fans saw was bogus. Still, he clung to the thoroughly irrational hope that the profits in his RainbowEx account were real.</i><p>Utterly bonkers story, even within the genre of crypto scams. It’s almost easier to believe that the NYT published a fictional story than to think an entire town could fall for a Ponzi, in this age of ubiquitous internet access