Crypto hedge fund CEO may not exist; probe finds no record of identity
HyperVerse's collapse caused an estimated $1.3 billion in customer losses.
Enlarge / A still from a HyperVerse video featuring CEO Steven Reece Lewis. (credit: @cryptotech607 | YouTube)
For years, rumors spread on social media that Steven Reece Lewis, the chief executive officer of a now-shuttered cryptocurrency hedge fund called HyperVerse, was a "fake person" who "doesn't exist." After its investigation, The Guardian has confirmed that no organization cited on his resume "can find any record of him."
According to The Guardian, Reece Lewis's qualifications all appear to be falsified in an effort to woo investors to sink money into HyperVerse. After HyperVerse collapsed, accused of operating as a pyramid scheme, the company suspended withdrawals. According to blockchain analysts, Chainalysis consumer losses in 2022 were estimated to exceed $1.3 billion. Thousands of consumers lost millions, The Guardian reported.
In a December 2021 video, Reece Lewis was introduced as CEO and touted for making big moves before joining HyperVerse. He supposedly went from working at Goldman Sachs to selling a web development company to Adobe before launching his own IT startup.