Supreme Court asks GainBitcoin scam accused to give ED access to his crypto wallet

The Supreme Court ordered Ajay Bhardwaj, one of the defendants in the GainBitcoin scam, to provide the Enforcement Directorate (ED) with the username and password to his cryptocurrency wallet on Monday.

The accused was asked to cooperate with the investigation by giving the username and password to his cryptocurrency wallet and making full disclosures to the investigating agency by a Bench led by Justice DY Chandrachud.

Additionally, the complainant's counsel, Advocate Shoeb Alam, was requested to give a list of all current charges brought against the defendants in connection with the scheme.

The Court was considering Bhardwaj's petition for the charges against him to be withdrawn. He is charged alongside his brother Amit Bhardwaj, who was the face of the GainBitcoin scam. Amit Bhardwaj passed away in January this year due to health complications.

What is the GainBitcoin scam?

Gainbitcoin was a multi-level marketing scheme run by Amit Bhardwaj.

They guaranteed a 10 per cent monthly return in Bitcoin-on-Bitcoin deposits for 18 months via multi-level marketing (MLM) programs. Investors were enticed to lend the corporation Bitcoins on the promise that their investments will be increased during the aforementioned period.

However, since there are only a limited number of Bitcoins, the logic of this MLM seemed deeply flawed, but many investors had already put their money in it without realising the error in their decisions.

Investors never received the principal amount and interest in Bitcoin. Both the principal and the interest were repaid in a currency called MCAP, which was created by the promoters of GainBitcoin. MCAP did not have the intrinsic value that Bitcoin had, and all the investors lost their money.