Quantitative AI Custodial Staking Scheme: High Daily Returns Lure Deposits, Then Full Lockup and Platform Goes Missing

Who Gets Targeted

Victims are mainly people aged 30 to 55 with some disposable income and basic cryptocurrency knowledge—they have mostly traded spot on exchanges or used staking services, are interested in 'AI quantitative trading' and 'automated trading' concepts, but do not truly understand the underlying mechanisms. Most have previously lost money in other investments or seen growth in their main income plateau, and urgently need a 'passive, stable income' channel to ease financial anxiety. They have a natural preference to trust professional-sounding phrases such as 'AI,' 'technical team background,' and 'the original team from the exchange.' Combined with the 'everyone is making money' atmosphere created by daily profit screenshots in community groups, this causes them to abandon independent judgment. Many misappropriate savings, borrow money, or even mortgage property to take a heavy one-time position. Once funds are locked, they fall into a 'sunk cost' dilemma, repeatedly adding funds in an attempt to 'unlock' previous investments.

骗局怎么运作

• Platforms launch with core selling points such as 'AI quantitative trading,' 'smart computing center custody,' and 'crypto staking dividends.' They usually register an offshore shell company or hold only a domestic technology consulting business license, and conduct viral promotion through WeChat groups, Telegram groups, and offline salons. Promotional language emphasizes endorsements such as 'the original team from Jubi Exchange' and 'Wall Street AI models,' shows backtest data claiming monthly returns of 20% to 30%, and creates scarcity with 'limited slots' and 'VIP channels' to accelerate decisions.
• The first deposits arrive extremely quickly and in precise amounts. The platform does initially pay returns daily or weekly as promised, and even supports small withdrawals at any time. Users can see a real-time 'trading dashboard' and position data, creating the appearance of real operation. Paid shills in the community continuously post withdrawal screenshots and messages of thanks, using the effect of group witnessing to build trust, making new users believe that 'others have already made money.'
• The platform then launches 6-month or 12-month 'locked staking plans,' claiming annualized returns ranging from 100% to 300%, and introduces multi-level referral commissions—5% to 10% for direct referrals and additional percentages for indirect referrals—rapidly pushing the entire structure toward a pyramid scheme model. Victims are incentivized to recruit relatives and friends and build teams. Some leaders collect funds from dozens of people under the names of 'joint staking' and 'group deposits' and transfer them to the platform in a lump sum.
• After several months of operation, once the fund pool has accumulated to a certain scale, the platform announces 'system upgrade,' 'on-chain channel maintenance,' or 'regulatory compliance review,' and suspends withdrawals. Some platforms at this point require members to pay a 10% to 20% 'unlock deposit,' 'tax fee,' or 'compliance certification fee' before withdrawals can resume, exploiting victims' panic to recover principal for a second round of harvesting.
• In the final stage, the website and app become inaccessible, community groups are muted or disbanded, and the core operators and promotion leaders all disappear. About 2 to 3 months later, the same team often relaunches under a new name and new domain—with nearly unchanged UI templates and yield models but a refreshed brand—starting a new harvesting cycle. Some previous victims are even invited a second time into the new scheme.
• Before collapse, some platforms create fake 'self-rescue' actions: claiming they have reported to regulators, are recovering on-chain assets, or will bring in strategic investors to compensate users, when in fact they are delaying rights protection and police reporting. At the same time, they use fear-based community management—threatening whistleblowers that 'if you make trouble, you won't get your money back'—to suppress collective rights-protection voices and buy time for operators to move funds and destroy evidence.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Promising 'stable returns' of more than 10% monthly or more than 100% annualized, and claiming they are guaranteed by AI models—even the world's top quantitative funds only achieve around 20% annualized; it is impossible to promise fixed high returns to the public.
• 🚩 The platform has not obtained any financial license or securities business qualification, only registering a technology consulting company or offshore shell company, yet it conducts public-facing wealth management and staking business.
• 🚩 Withdrawals require paying extra fees first, such as 'taxes,' 'unlock fees,' or 'certification fees.' Legitimate platforms only deduct from the withdrawal amount and would never require users to transfer funds to another address separately.
• 🚩 Referral rewards are set at more than two levels, and commissions account for an excessively high share of returns—if direct plus indirect referral commissions total more than 30%, it has the characteristics of a pyramid fund scheme, paying old participants with new entrants' principal.
• 🚩 The platform suddenly suspends withdrawals citing 'system upgrade,' 'compliance review,' or 'on-chain maintenance,' but the official website and community groups are still attracting new user deposits—this indicates the funding chain has broken and it is using later deposits to make emergency payments.
• 🚩 The domain was registered very recently (for example, it only went online in the past 3 to 6 months), and there is no verifiable entity company address, office phone, or compliance officer information, yet it claims deep cooperation with well-known exchanges or institutions.

真实案例

• Between 2023 and 2024, the OneAgent Hermit Crab platform used 'AI quantitative virtual currency' as a selling point, claimed to be associated with the original team from Jubi Exchange, and launched custodial staking wealth management products, attracting a large number of users to deposit funds. After several months of operation, the platform suddenly suspended withdrawals and muted its community groups, after which all core promoters disappeared. Multiple anti-fraud information platforms published exposés, pointing out that the platform was a harvesting routine from a previously collapsed team that had changed its shell and relaunched; victims were spread across multiple crypto communities.
• In 2023, the Zhongshengming quantitative AI wealth management platform, under the guise of 'AI quantitative trading,' claimed monthly returns of more than 30% and rapidly developed tens of thousands of members through WeChat groups and offline salons to deposit funds. After a full lockup that year, a large number of victims were unable to withdraw and reported the case to the Shenzhen public security authorities. According to public reports, Shenzhen police have formally opened an investigation into the Zhongshengming quantitative AI wealth management scheme, with the amount involved estimated at more than RMB 300 million, and the core operating team has been listed as fugitives. (Source: https://www.foshang.cc/article/8138.html)
• In November 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against a cryptocurrency platform involving about US$400 million. The platform had long promised investors a fixed monthly return of 10% and allowed them to earn yields through staking. Regulators determined it was in substance a Ponzi scheme—using later entrants' principal to pay earlier investors' returns—and ultimately the platform's funding chain broke and investors could not recover any principal. (Source: https://www.trustformer.info/zh/s-articles/article872)

Official Stance

• In September 2023, the Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (now the National Financial Regulatory Administration) issued a risk notice, warning the public to be alert to illegal fundraising activities under the names of 'AI quantitative' and 'smart custody,' and emphasizing that promising principal protection and guaranteed returns or fixed high returns is suspected of being illegal.
• In November 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) jointly filed a civil fraud lawsuit against a cryptocurrency platform involving about US$400 million, alleging that it used a 10% monthly return as a lure to operate a Ponzi scheme. This was a rare case in which two major federal regulators took enforcement action against the same crypto project at the same time.
• In 2023, the Notice on Further Preventing and Handling the Risks of Virtual Currency Trading Speculation, jointly issued by the People's Bank of China and other departments, continued to serve as an enforcement basis. Based on it, public security organs in multiple places carried out special crackdowns on fund schemes under the names of virtual currency staking and quantitative wealth management. The Shenzhen police's Zhongshengming case was a typical filed case.
• In early 2024, local financial supervision bureaus in multiple places (including Guangdong, Sichuan, and Zhejiang) issued risk warning announcements about 'AI custody wealth management,' reminding investors to be alert to illegal fundraising and virtual currency scams disguised by artificial intelligence technology, and not to readily trust group chat recommendations and principal-protected high-yield pitches.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Before depositing funds, check through the official website of the National Financial Regulatory Administration whether the counterparty holds a financial license. Legitimate financial institutions and licensed exchanges must complete filing or registration with regulators; anyone with only a technology business license but claiming to conduct wealth management business should be treated as high risk.
• ✅ Reject any project that promises monthly returns of more than 10% or annualized returns of more than 100%—even the world's top quantitative funds only achieve about 20% annualized, and they carry enormous volatility risk; promising 'fixed returns' or 'principal protection and guaranteed returns' itself violates China's current financial regulations.
• ✅ Do not be induced by the pitch that 'the longer the lock-up, the higher the return.' The lock-up mechanism is essentially designed to restrict the free flow of funds and extend the operating time of the operator's fund pool. If participation is unavoidable, test with an extremely small amount and decide whether to continue only after confirming that you can freely withdraw the full amount.
• ✅ Have zero tolerance for projects with referral commissions exceeding two levels or commission rates exceeding 10%—the source of funds for such arrangements can only be later entrants' principal, which is a typical Ponzi fund structure and will inevitably collapse.
• ✅ Keep all evidence, including deposit vouchers, contract screenshots, group chat records, promotional materials from the counterparty, and transfer addresses. Once withdrawal delays occur or the platform suspends withdrawals for any reason, immediately stop adding any funds and report to the local public security authorities. Do not transfer any 'unlock fee' or 'tax fee' to any additional address provided by the counterparty.