By Erick Every now and then there is a scam or a Ponzi scheme that gets busted which reminds us that there are always bad actors out there who get more sophisticated in swindling more people out of their hard earned money. But that’s not the scariest part of this GainBitcoin Ponzi scheme.
There’s also the fact that this was a multi-thousand crore Ponzi scheme which was uncovered when the CBI made arrests this week. But that’s also not the scariest part of this GainBitcoin Ponzi scheme.
The scariest part is – it went on for so long. For years.
Key Details
The scheme referred to as “GainBitcoin” (often colloquially called GetBitcoin) is one of India’s largest cryptocurrency frauds, involving the misappropriation of approximately 29,000 to 80,000 Bitcoins (holy f**k). Recently, in March 2026, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) made a major breakthrough by arresting the scheme’s technical mastermind.
Recent Arrests (March 2026)
- Ayush Varshney: The co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Darwin Labs was arrested at Mumbai airport on March 10, 2026, while allegedly attempting to flee to Sri Lanka.
- Significance: Varshney is accused of architecting the entire fraudulent infrastructure, including the MCAP token, mining pool platform GBMiners.com, and the GainBitcoin investor portal.
- Other Key Figures:
- Amit Bhardwaj: The alleged mastermind and founder of GainBitcoin; he was arrested in 2018 and died in 2022.
- Ajay Bhardwaj: Amit’s brother, who remains a key figure in ongoing investigations.
- Sahil Baghla & Nikunj Jain: Co-founders of Darwin Labs previously arrested in 2018 for their roles in developing the scheme’s technology.
The Story
- The Hook (2015): Launched by Variabletech Pte Ltd (Singapore), the scheme promised investors a 10% monthly return (which even the best of “real” schemes will never promise – this should have been a red flag) in Bitcoin for 18 months through “cloud mining” contracts.
- The Structure: It operated as a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) pyramid scheme where early investors were paid using funds from new recruits.
- The Collapse (2017): As new investments slowed, the scheme failed to pay out in Bitcoin. Instead, it forced users to accept a proprietary, near-worthless token called MCAP.
- Celebrity Links: To gain legitimacy, the founders used Bollywood stars like Shilpa Shetty and Bipasha Basu to promote promotional materials, leading to later questioning of associates like Raj Kundra. Seriously, celebrities need to be held to account for their endorsements.
Key Details – But in a Table
| Feature | Details |
|---|---|
| Total Fraud Value | Estimated between ₹6,600 crore to ₹20,000 crores. |
| Victims | Over 1,00,000 investors across multiple Indian states. |
| Assets Involved | At least 29,000 Bitcoins were misappropriated. |
| Legal Status | The Supreme Court consolidated dozens of FIRs in December 2023, handing the case over to the CBI for a unified probe. |
The investigation is ongoing, with authorities focusing on tracing international fund transfers and recovering assets from overseas wallets.
The Dream That Was Sold
Well this was a cautionary tale. But really, the scale of it – 1 lakh “investors” having a total of ₹20,000 crores (possibly) swindles is something. How it got to this scale and with celebrities endorsing it, and it took so long for arrests to finally be made.
The lesson here is obviously don’t trust anyone remotely shady with your money, especially with schemes laid on technologies that are hard to understand. In reality, cryptocurrency – though it’s been around since atleast 2009 – is still complex, and has not really solved any real world problems other than having drug dealers and other horrible people pedal illicit stuff on the dark web, because they could have been paid without being traced by authorities.
But there’s a very specific lesson here – that the dreams that are sold by pop culture are nightmares for most people. Popular media for a while was ripe with “Crypto bros” and how people made millions and billions by randomly buying bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies for pennies.
That dream is dead. Don’t fall for it, ever.