Crypto Kingpin’s Wild Weekend: Jail, 99% Meltdown, and a Hotel Bill That Outpaces His Morals

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Ben Pasternak, 26-year-old architect of the Solana-based token launchpad Believe, found himself in a New York jail cell this week. Not for crypto crimes, mind you, but for allegedly strangling someone-though we’re all still waiting for the press release explaining how that’s “decentralized.” Meanwhile, his token plummeted 99.8% from its all-time high, proving once again that blockchain’s greatest innovation is making $54 million disappear while charging users for the privilege.

Key Takeaways (Because Scandals Need Bullet Points):

  • Pasternak pleaded “not guilty” to strangulation charges after a March 31 incident. His defense strategy? “I was just trying to decentralize her air supply.” Court date: June 11.
  • Class-action lawyers allege he recycled the same “tokenomics” scheme across three projects, siphoning $54M from $6B in trading volume. Spoiler: The “playbook” involves minting new coins, deleting old ones, and calling it “innovation.”
  • To avoid being served legal papers, Pasternak bunked in a $2,000/night hotel. Because nothing says “ethical founder” like spending $60K/month to dodge accountability.

Three Tokens, One Suspected Copy-Paste Button

Pasternak launched Launchcoin, a Solana platform where influencers could tokenize their clout. Its token hit a $370M market cap before a “forced migration” reset balances-because nothing says “trustless” like arbitrarily deleting user funds. The migration wasn’t an upgrade; it was a tax on optimism. Insiders got 333 million new tokens. Regular holders? Just a polite “thanks for playing.”

Image source: X (Because screenshots of police reports are the new NFTs)

The lawsuit claims Pasternak ran the same scam thrice: Launchcoin → Believe → PASTERNAK (which, ironically, is his last name). Each “rebrand” allegedly vaporized old holders’ stakes to mint fresh fees. It’s like a Ponzi scheme, but with more whitepapers.

Over the platform’s lifecycle, $6B in trading volume coughed up $54M in fees. The BELIEVE token now trades at “I could’ve bought a Tesla with that” levels. Its 99.8% drop from $0.35? A bargain-bin special for investors who like emotional trauma.

Arrest in New York: When the Bear Market Isn’t Enough

The strangulation charges stem from a March 31 incident involving Evelyn Ha, a TikTok influencer Pasternak was dating. Details are sparse, but we’re imagining a scenario where he tried to “tokenize” her silence. He’s pleaded not guilty, which is legally distinct from “ethically solvent.”

Prosecutors allege Pasternak’s hotel suite wasn’t just for vibes-it was a $2K/night fortress to avoid civil lawsuits. Because if you’re going to burn $60K/month on a hideout, might as well add “tax evasion” to the resume. No crypto-specific criminal charges yet, but let’s not rush. The man’s got a June 11 court date. Stranger things have happened.

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2026-04-25 18:27