- Shane Donovan Moore ran a fake crypto mining company, defrauding over 40 investors
- He promised 1% daily returns, classic Ponzi playbook in a shiny new Web3 wrapper
- He’s now serving 2.5 years in US federal prison for the $900K scam
There’s something uniquely disappointing about watching someone shift from the grind of professional sport to the underworld of crypto scams — and yet here we are again.
Shane Donovan Moore, once a rugby player with grit, now finds himself serving 2.5 years in a US federal prison.
His crime? Running a full-blown Ponzi scheme masked as a crypto mining operation. The project — if we can even call it that — went by the name Quantum Donovan LLC, and from January 2021 to October 2022, it raked in more than $900,000 from over 40 investors.
If you’re imagining a flashy mining warehouse filled with GPUs humming at full speed, think again. This was smoke and mirrors. The typical promise was 1% daily returns — the kind of pitch that only works because it feels like it could be true, especially in the volatile world of crypto.
But this was no innovative mining model or DeFi breakthrough. It was the same old scam in a shiny Web3 outfit. The money that came in wasn’t buying mining rigs — it was used to pay off earlier investors and keep the illusion going.
It’s the classic Ponzi play, just upgraded with crypto buzzwords and a layer of blockchain mystique.
People fell for it. That’s the hardest part to swallow. Over 40 individuals believed they were investing in a cutting-edge mining operation. Maybe they were inspired by Moore’s past or impressed by the supposed legitimacy of his LLC. Either way, their trust was betrayed.
We’ve seen this pattern before: the hype around crypto attracts not just hopeful investors, but opportunists who see a chance to exploit. And when they come dressed in professional résumés or athletic backgrounds, they’re even harder to spot.
But the fundamentals of trust don’t change — when someone guarantees outsized daily returns in a market known for volatility, red flags should fly high.
Now Moore faces prison time, and those 40+ investors are left picking up the pieces of their financial losses and their trust in this space.
It’s another reminder that due diligence matters more than ever, especially in crypto — because the tech may be new, but the scams are as old as time.
