FBI Launches Safemoon Victim Appeal: Will SFM Investors Get Money Back?

Guy Fawkes 2025.09.17 3 min read

The FBI’s New York office is urging SafeMoon investors who lost money to come forward as part of a federal investigation into one of the DeFi’s most infamous frauds.

In May 2025, former SafeMoon CEO Braden John Karony was convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Prosecutors said Karony and his partners misled investors throughout the 2021–2022 bull run, including false claims about executive access to SafeMoon’s liquidity pool and how those funds were being used.

Karony and co-conspirator Kyle Nagy (still at large) diverted millions of dollars from SafeMoon’s liquidity pool. If you’re one of the many victims seeking justice, here’s how:

Did SafeMoon Scam You? Stand Up For Justice Here

The FBI is now asking SafeMoon V1 investors to complete a victim impact form. Responses will help federal investigators assess the scope of damages, determine restitution eligibility, and potentially contact victims for follow-up.

You can sign up for justice against SafeMoon here.

According to the Bureau: Victims may qualify for “certain services, restitution, and rights under federal and/or state law.”

I lost over $5,000 on your scam coin

— Muller17 (@Bid1784) September 10, 2025

All information submitted will remain confidential, with voluntary disclosures aiding the federal investigation.

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SafeMoon’s Rise and Collapse: How Did This Scam Get So Big?

SafeMoon was emblematic of the 2021 “meme coin” mania. It actually predated the formal memecoin wave that would come three years later. Promoted as a community-driven token with “automatic liquidity,” it rode the retail wave alongside Dogecoin and Shiba Inu. At its peak, SafeMoon briefly reached a multibillion-dollar market capitalization.

However, unlike projects such as EOS or Tron, which are flawed but backed by formal development teams, SafeMoon had little technical depth. It was built around viral hype and aggressive social media marketing.

As one early critic in the SafeMoon subreddit recalled: “SafeMoon was so obviously developed by a few shitheads I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw people emphatically repeating the complete nonsense claims,” the user wrote.

“There were so many safemoon shills when the daily thread was hitting 20k + comments daily lol.” – Reddit user

While exact figures vary, on-chain analysis shows that SafeMoon’s market cap peaked near $6 Bn in spring 2021 before collapsing by over 95% within a year. CoinGlass data suggests that daily trading volume once exceeded $500 Mn but is now negligible.

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SafeMoon V2 and Will the FBI Deliver Justice?

Expectedly, there’s a new SafeMoon project, Safemoon V2, but nobody trusts any project that is even vaguely associated with the scam. More broadly, the SafeMoon case signals regulators’ growing willingness to target centralized exchanges and token issuers.

Karony’s conviction, paired with ongoing investigations into Nagy and Smith, closes a chapter on one of crypto’s most infamous projects. But the call for victims also raises the question: how many other meme coins from the 2021 frenzy will eventually face similar scrutiny?

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