MMM Crypto Scheme Reboot: The 2026 New Variant of the 'Mavrodi Mutual Aid Platform' Disguised in Bitcoin's Clothing

Who Gets Targeted

The victims are primarily middle-aged and elderly groups in third- and fourth-tier cities, debtors eager to turn their lives around, and young workers with limited financial literacy who are anxious to 'overtake on a curve.' They also include some older members who participated in MMM years ago, refused to accept losses, and fantasized about a 'restart to break even.' They easily fall for the self-soothing logic that 'mutual aid is not investment so it's not illegal' and 'earn quickly by entering and exiting early.' Easily intoxicated by figures like 1% daily interest and 30% monthly interest, they romanticize recruiting others into 'helping people' or 'doing charity,' unwittingly becoming voluntary promoters of the scam among family groups and acquaintance circles, ultimately losing their savings and burdened with trust debts to relatives and friends after the collapse.

骗局怎么运作

• Step 1: Packaging the origin story. The operators claim the system stems from the mutual aid philosophy of 'legendary mathematician Mavrodi,' while the 2026 version layers on terms like 'blockchain smart contracts' and 'decentralized matching,' claiming open-source code and no central accounts to create an illusion of technological neutrality.
• Step 2: Setting high-yield hooks. Promising static returns of 30% monthly interest or 1% daily interest with a low entry barrier (start with hundreds of yuan), the pitch 'do not transfer money to the platform, only to the person helping you' deliberately avoids words like 'fundraising,' misleading participants into thinking it is not wealth management.
• Step 3: Designing the dissemination mechanism. Multi-tier commission structures such as promotion rewards, direct-referral rewards, and team leadership rewards are set up to encourage members to develop downlines. WeChat step-counter-style withdrawal screenshots scroll continuously in groups, creating a group illusion that 'everyone is making money.'
• Step 4: Control and restart routines. When the inflow of new funds slows down, the system freezes withdrawals under the pretext of 'system upgrades,' 'hacker attacks,' or 'matching failures,' and subsequently announces a 'restart pool.' Old members' principal is converted into 'equity' or 'points,' forcing them to recruit new funds to unlock it for a secondary harvest.
• Step 5: Collapse and absconding. Servers are mostly set up overseas, and fund collections are distributed through channels such as personal bank cards and USDT. Once public opinion brews or police intervene, operators directly shut down websites and lose contact, making the whereabouts of funds untraceable and the cost of rights protection high.

红旗信号（看到这些快跑）

• 🚩 Promising fixed returns such as 30% monthly interest or 1% daily interest that far exceed any legitimate wealth management product
• 🚩 Claiming to be 'mutual aid' or 'donation' rather than investment, thereby asserting immunity from financial regulation
• 🚩 Returns primarily derived from promotion rewards for developing downlines and multi-tier leadership commissions
• 🚩 Setting delay mechanisms such as 'matching' and 'queuing' for withdrawals and frequently changing rules
• 🚩 No physical company, no financial business license, with collection methods via private accounts or virtual currencies
• 🚩 Encouraging the romanticization of recruitment behaviors using rhetoric like 'doing good deeds' and 'helping others achieve their dreams'
• 🚩 Immediately launching a 'restart pool' or 'resurrection coin' after a collapse, demanding continued investment to unlock old assets

真实案例

• According to a report by China Economic Net in January 2016, MMM 'financial mutual aid' spread in China, with investors investing hundreds of thousands of yuan. The platform used 30% monthly interest as bait and recruited people through multi-tier rewards, while the China Banking Regulatory Commission and other departments had already jointly issued risk warnings at the time.
• According to a report by Observer Net in April 2016, around the time the international MMM system collapsed, domestic associated mutual aid platforms successively became unable to process withdrawals. A large number of participants' aid funds turned into unencashable numbers, capturing public attention in the same month as the Zhongjin case.
• According to a 2015 report by Jiemian News, the MMM financial mutual aid platform was temporarily 'unable to be investigated' due to regulatory definition difficulties, and the China Banking Regulatory Commission issued a risk warning indicating that its mutual aid model was actually a Ponzi structure, reminding the public not to participate.
• According to Business Times Chinese edition, Singaporean citizens were lured to Nanning to participate in pyramid-style Ponzi schemes using free dinners and luxury apartments as bait, showing that the rhetoric of such mutual aid schemes continues to mutate and spread within Southeast Asian Chinese communities.
• In September 2016, the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta exposed the case of the crypto investment platform Finiko (which claimed 25% monthly interest and established a ten-tier referral commission system): the case involved 8,000 investors and losses of 5 billion rubles. The Central Bank of Russia had already listed it in its financial pyramid directory in February 2021, and the main culprit was arrested in July 2021. (Source: [https://rg.ru/2026/09/12/reg-pfo/chto-izvestno-o-piramide-finiko-s-kotoroj-sviazyvajut-eks-ministra-nikiforova.html](https://rg.ru/2026/09/12/reg-pfo/chto-izvestno-o-piramide-finiko-s-kotoroj-sviazyvajut-eks-ministra-nikiforova.html))
• In July 2025, the Taojiang County Public Security Bureau in Hunan Province reported that the 'DGCX Xinkangkang' platform was suspected of fundraising fraud (absorbing about 13 billion yuan over two years with over 2 million victims); on the 15th of the same month, Hong Kong police arrested 4 women in Wan Chai and Tai Po districts for conspiracy to defraud, involving the recruitment of at least 118 victims and 3.9 million Hong Kong dollars in principal, with the platform restricting withdrawals since late June using a 10% 'unfreezing fee.' (Source: [https://www.wenweipo.com/a/202507/16/AP687772fce4b03e816cf27e25.html](https://www.wenweipo.com/a/202507/16/AP687772fce4b03e816cf27e25.html))

Official Stance

• In November 2015, departments including the China Banking Regulatory Commission issued a risk warning regarding the 'MMM Financial Mutual Aid Community' model, determining that it possessed characteristics of illegal fundraising and Ponzi schemes.
• In January 2016, China Economic Net published 'Re-investigating MMM Financial Mutual Aid,' disclosing the current status of participants returning after regulatory warnings and issuing another alert.
• Between 2023 and 2025, leading departments for handling illegal fundraising in multiple regions (Anti-Illegal Fundraising Offices) named origin-identical high-yield funding schemes such as 'Zhongzhou Union Reserve,' whose 900% annualized rhetoric is identical to MMM, warning of an imminent collapse and absconding.
• Both the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong and the Monetary Authority of Singapore have placed such 'high-yield mutual aid investment schemes' on investor alert lists, warning of unlicensed fundraising risks.

How to Protect Yourself

• ✅ Directly block any platform seeing terms like '30% monthly interest' or '1% daily interest.' No legitimate wealth management can guarantee fixed returns exceeding deposit interest rates by multiple times over the long term.
• ✅ Verify subject qualifications: check whether the institution is licensed on the 'Financial License Query' section of the National Financial Regulatory Administration's official website; being unlicensed means no qualification to absorb any funds.
• ✅ Reject all 'recruit-to-earn commission' models. Any scheme where returns are linked to the number of downlines is suspected of pyramid scheming, and participation itself may entail legal liability.
• ✅ Do not transfer money to personal accounts or overseas wallets, keep chat logs and transfer vouchers, and immediately call 12345 or report to the local anti-illegal fundraising office upon discovering anomalies.
• ✅ Maintain the highest vigilance against the rhetoric of 'restart pools' and 'unlocking old assets.' These are often secondary harvests by the same operators, and not a single penny more should be added.