The 8 Biggest Web3 C--ts of 2022

• Given the events of 2022, this list COULD be interminable.

• We've limited ourselves to the 8 most "deserving" figures in web3.

• The ordering is loose... just like these wizard sleeves ;)

1. Logan Paul

Thanks to recent revelations—summarized spectacularly by Coffeezilla—Logan Paul has been caught redhanded planning a scam + rug project: the infamous CryptoZoo. From a stealth launch that allowed founders to buy tokens before the public, to hiring and then never paying the project’s devs, Logan was obviously trying to profits off the backs of his fans. Who markets a P2E game and then doesn’t ever make a game?!? Ironically enough, the CryptoZoo founders were SO shady, they dumped on Paul before he could sell his token stash. What a c*nt.

2.  SBF

What needs to be said about Sam Bankman-Fried that hasn’t been exhaustively covered since FTX’s collapse? The latest saga in this scandal involves Sammy claiming to have no money… only to post significant bail, try & fail to hire a private jet, attempt to buy out an entire first-class cabin, only to settle for a business class seat. This bears repeating, what a c*nt.

3. Gary Gensler

Gensler was once the “cool MIT professor” who taught the world’s finest minds about blockchain. Now the embattled SEC Chairman has been portrayed as an ineffective, fame-chasing, failure… by HIS OWN political party. Echoing a growing sentiment in Congress, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) went IN: “The operating principle of the SEC must be protection for the investing public, rather than publicity for the political appointee in charge.” Ouch.

4. Bitboy Crypto

Ben “Bitboy” Armstrong, aka the Eric Cartman/Alex Jones of crypto, has had a good end to 2022. He scored big points by being one of the first voices to go hard after SBF. But let’s not forget Bitboy’s ultimate cringe and scam revelations from this year. 

Bitboy admitted to doing numerous paid videos where he shilled coins that flopped hard. He would skirt regulation by briefly mentioning the content was paid… and then going ham on the promo. This allowed shady founders to dump on Bitboy’s followers after they aped into the coin du jour. 

Perhaps even more embarrassing (than selling himself out to shady coins), in August, Bitboy tried to bully the Youtuber Atozy and failed miserably. Armstrong sued Atozy for calling him a “dirtbag.” Bitboy gloated that he’ll crush Atozy with his financial and legal might–unless all of Atozy’s 16-year-old fans “borrow a $10 dollar mom (sic) from their mom’s purse to help [him] out.” Talking shit about Atozy’s fans did not go well. A GoFundMe raised over $200k for Atozy’s legal defense… in under 24hrs! Seems that a lot of people were all too willing to crowdfund Bitboy’s humiliation. 

5. Alex Mashinsky

From “Unbank yourself” to unemployed, Alex Mashinsky, former CEO of Celsius Network had a bad year. The blustering, self-promoting, king of unreasonably high-yield staking got caught up in the Terra & 3AC contagion. Perhaps his own words on June 12th of this year sum things up best, find “even one person who has a problem withdrawing from Celsius.” On June 13th, Celsius stopped withdrawals and filed for bankruptcy. Oof.

6. Avraham “Avi” Eisenberg

Eisenberg is really putting the “Code is law” theory to test. The success of his DeFi exploits are only rivaled by the brazen arrogance of his Twitter posts. After stealing $110M from Mango Markets in October, Avi should’ve stayed quiet. Instead, the braggart promoted his “work” openly on Twitter.

A few days ago, he was arrested in Puerto Rico for “market manipulation.” Oh, and for those who do think “code is law,” and the collateral damage to thousands of people is insignificant, check out this thread detailing how Avi stole from FortressDAO. Good luck in court, buddy.

7. Kyle Roche

Redlion covered the scandal that involved AVA labs and their deathsquad of crypto lawyers. The chief culprit was Kyle Roche. He was caught on a hidden cam bragging about all the litigious hell he threw at AVAX’s competitors. The basic tactic was to set up class action lawsuits and tip off regulators all in the hope that AVAX would get more market share. 

Even worse, via the discovery process of trials, Roche got his hands on the intellectual property of many crypto projects–they legally had to give their IP to Kyle, the cases’ plaintiff. This conniver has “seen the insides of every single crypto company.” How did he plan to win his cases? Well, “The lawyer who cheats the most, can often times win.”

That may be true but Roche took the “L” when his firm, Roche Freedman, parted ways with him–yup, they booted the Roche out of Roche Freedman. That’s cold.

8. Pixelmon

Not an individual but… wow. Remember the Pixelmon art reveal in February? SO embarrassing! After raising $70M in NFT sales, with prices starting at 3eth, Pixelmon revealed embarrassing art. Even the project’s founder called the work “unacceptable.” Famed blockchain reporter, ZachXBT called it a rug. For those not directly involved with the project, it was mostly just “hilarious.” While it was not funny to the project’s investors, at the very least, Pixelmon did reveal much improved, revamped art in September.

Congrats on making it to the bottom of the list, Anon. Shout out to all the blockchain sleuths like ZachXBT who made this article possible. We'll see you—and hopefully fewer scams—in '23. Have a happy new year!