AI Stablecoin Arbitrage Ponzi Scheme: Promising high returns on stablecoin arbitrage under the guise of AI quantitative trading, which is actually a Ponzi scheme

Who Gets Targeted

Victims are primarily middle-class individuals aged 30 to 55, including urban white-collar workers, small and medium-sized enterprise owners, retirees, and some digital currency investors. Most of them have some investment experience but lack on-chain technical identification skills. Their psychological vulnerabilities focus on three aspects: first, blind trust in high-end concepts like stablecoin arbitrage, assuming professional terminology equals professional capability; second, being lulled by early real small-scale withdrawal experiences, leading to sunk cost psychology and continuous additional investments; and third, significant peer pressure within communities, where seeing group members post earnings screenshots creates a fear of missing out, driving them to enter the market under herd behavior.

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Packaging the AI arbitrage concept. Scammers register offshore companies, set up counterfeit exchanges or decentralized application front-ends, claim to have self-developed AI quantitative models capable of capturing stablecoin price spreads across different exchanges to achieve risk-free arbitrage, and display forged live trading return curves and historical backtesting data to create an authoritative sense of technological leadership.
• Step 2: Community fission for customer acquisition. A large volume of traffic-driving content is posted on WeChat groups, Telegram groups, and short-video platforms. Scammers act as AI lecturers and quantitative experts to live-stream explanations of stablecoin arbitrage principles, lowering the entry barrier with zero-threshold registration and registration token bonuses, while arranging shills in the groups to post earnings screenshots and create a bandwagon effect.
• Step 3: Inducing deposits and lock-ups. After registration, victims are guided to deposit stablecoins into platform-designated addresses via over-the-counter trading or on-chain transfers. The platform uses tactics such as lock-up periods and tiered packages to induce large deposits, promising monthly returns of 8% to 30% or even higher, and establishes a referral rebate mechanism to encourage member recruitment, forming a classic Ponzi structure.
• Step 4: Building trust through early small-scale withdrawals. In the initial deposit stage, the platform allows small withdrawals and even actively deposits returns into victims' wallets. After verifying the receipt, victims' trust in the platform skyrockets, leading them to add principal and encourage friends and family to join. At this point, new funds are mainly used to pay returns to earlier investors.
• Step 5: Creating obstacles to delay withdrawals. When new funds slow down or the operators judge that the harvest timing is ripe, they begin to restrict withdrawals using excuses such as system upgrades, on-chain congestion, and risk control audits, requiring additional thaw fees or supplementary margins to release funds. Some platforms directly close the withdrawal channel and delete communities, executing a final harvest before fleeing.
• Step 6: Skin-swapping and rebooting for cyclic harvesting. After fleeing, the operating team often changes the brand name and front-end interface while retaining the backend user data and script systems to relaunch. They use excuses such as data recovery compensation funds to re-induce the previous wave of victims into investing, forming a cyclic harvesting chain.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Promising monthly returns exceeding 8% while claiming zero risk or guaranteed principal and interest, far beyond the reasonable return level of any legitimate financial product
• 🚩 Requiring users to deposit stablecoins into private addresses on non-mainstream exchanges or unknown smart contracts, with funds completely out of regulatory control
• 🚩 Adopting a multi-level referral rebate mechanism where returns rely heavily on new user deposits rather than profits generated from actual arbitrage trading
• 🚩 The platform entity is registered in offshore islands with no physical office or licensed business qualifications domestically, and customer service is contacted solely through instant messaging tools
• 🚩 Encountering additional conditions during withdrawal such as system upgrades, risk control audits, and the need to pay thaw fees, with inability to provide on-chain transaction hashes for verification

真实案例

• ZhongShengMing Quantitative AI Wealth Management Fund: Formally investigated by the Shenzhen public security authorities in 2024. The platform attracted investors to deposit stablecoins into platform wallets under the guise of AI quantitative wealth management, promising annualized returns exceeding 100%, followed by comprehensive lock-ups and withdrawal failures, involving an estimated over 300 million yuan and trapping the funds of tens of thousands of investors. (Source: [https://www.foshang.cc/article/8138.html](https://www.foshang.cc/article/8138.html))
• HuiJing Quantitative AI Stock Trading Scam: The platform claimed daily returns of 3% and annualized returns exceeding 1000%, attracting deposits with AI stock selection and stablecoin arbitrage as selling points before completely collapsing. Investigations showed that investor funds never entered the stock market or any arbitrage market, and were entirely used for Ponzi dividends and transfer by operators.
• HeZhong YuanJing Project: Claimed annualized returns of 155%, fabricated the concept of an AI computing center, and attracted investors with stablecoin deposits and high rebates before being investigated and cracked down on by public security organs. Similar AI-packaged fund schemes have all collapsed.
• In August 2026, the HeZhong YuanJing Project was exposed for operating a fund scheme under the banner of AI quantitative trading: the project claimed annualized returns of 155% and fabricated the concept of an AI computing center to attract stablecoin deposits. The police have filed a case for investigation. The platform recently carried out a massive member purge and restricted withdrawals, with principal facing the risk of being wiped out. (Source: [https://www.usay.cc/article/9987.html](https://www.usay.cc/article/9987.html))

Official Stance

• In September 2024, the National Financial Regulatory Administration issued a risk warning reminding the public to guard against illegal fundraising activities under the guise of AI quantitative trading and virtual currency arbitrage, emphasizing that any financial investment promising principal protection and high interest is non-compliant.
• In 2024, the People's Bank of China and multiple departments jointly issued a notice on preventing the risks of virtual currency speculation, clarifying that virtual currency-related business activities belong to illegal financial activities, and overseas exchanges providing services to domestic residents via the internet are equally illegal.
• In 2024, the Economic Crime Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security repeatedly reported fund scheme cases using AI and quantitative trading as gimmicks, reminding investors to remain vigilant against high-return promises and report suspected criminal clues to public security organs in a timely manner.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Verify platform licensing qualifications: Check whether the platform possesses relevant financial business licenses on official websites such as the China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Financial Regulatory Administration. Overseas platforms can be verified through local regulatory agency official websites. Do not invest without licensing information.
• ✅ Refuse off-chain transfer deposits: Legitimate exchange capital inflows and outflows are completed within the platform. Any behavior requiring transfers to personal wallet addresses, unknown smart contracts, or over-the-counter channels for deposit is highly suspicious and operation should be terminated immediately.
• ✅ Inspect on-chain capital flows: Use blockchain explorers to query the fund flow of the platform's receiving address. If funds are frequently transferred to personal addresses or rapidly split and transferred rather than entering mainstream exchanges for arbitrage, it can basically be judged as a fund scheme.
• ✅ Report cases in time to stop losses: Once withdrawal restrictions are found or the platform shows signs of running away, immediately stop additional investments, preserve evidence such as recharge records, chat logs, and platform screenshots, report the case to the economic crime investigation department of the local public security organ, and report to the anti-fraud center.