Overview

SafeMoon LLC was an American cryptocurrency and blockchain company created in March 2021. The company created the SafeMoon token (SFM) which traded on the BNB Chain blockchain. The token charged a 10% fee on transactions, with 5% redistributed (or reflected) to token holders and 5% directed to wallets in a different currency, Binance Coin (BNB), controlled by the coin's authors. The token reached its all-time high market cap in April 2021 of $17b.

In November 2023, the SEC and the United States Department of Justice charged SafeMoon and its executive team with fraud, the unregistered offering of securities, and money laundering. In December 2023, SafeMoon declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and as a part of this process was acquired by the VGX Foundation. The company has since been defunct, and all operations have been ceased.

2021: SafeMoon version 1

SafeMoon was released in March 2021. A compound of "Safe" and "Moon". The token was released with the slogan of landing "Safely to the moon", derived from the slang phrase used in the cryptocurrency community; "To the moon" which is used to describe a crypto token "to quickly rise in price". The token had no utility and team when it was launched.

Upon release, Vice reported that between 14 March and 21 April 2021, SafeMoon increased in value by 23,225% following celebrity endorsements from musicians Lil' Yachty and Nick Carter, YouTuber Logan Paul, social media hype, new exchange listings, and retail investors. At that time, Vice said that "cryptocurrencies like SafeMoon still have no real-world use." These celebrities were later sued by many SafeMoon investors as part of a class-action lawsuit branding SafeMoon to be a part of a pump and dump scheme.

After the substantial rise in price, the unknown developers of the token appointed Braden John Karony as the CEO of Safemoon and registered as a Limited liability company with aims of providing utility to the token. Before this appointment, Karony served as a former analyst for the United States Department of Defense from January 2015 to January 2021.

In May 2021, SafeMoon announced making a presentation to The Gambia to provide "technology for innovation and learning purposes". The project was dubbed "Project Pheonix" (the misspelling of Phoenix being intentional), SafeMoon released a familiar crypto pitch of serving the "unbanked" and claimed to be working with local governments to adopt the token as a local currency. A company run by John Karony's mother ECG LC, was set up in May 2021 to deliver this project.

On 27 August 2022, John stated that his reasons for discontinuing his work in West Africa were due to supply chain problems, which is disputed by his mother in the ongoing Project Pheonix lawsuit.

In June 2021, the project began beta testing of the SafeMoon wallet. The app was officially released on Google Play in September 2021 and the App Store in October 2021. Critics dubbed the wallet to be a copy of the Trust Wallet owned by Binance. Thomas Smith, who was the CTO for Safemoon, left the company in December 2021 for a role as a blockchain advisor for StrikeX, however, was dismissed by the company after the fraud allegations uncovered by Stephen Findeisen.^([non-primary source needed])

2022: Migration to SafeMoon V2

In December 2021, SafeMoon developed Version 2 of their token (SafeMoon V2), an updated version of the SafeMoon contract. As part of consolidating to V2, the SafeMoon team implemented a deadline to migrate their tokens, or else investors would be faced with a 100% tax. The team also released a decentralised exchange titled "Safemoon Swap" as the only place where this migration could happen. In April 2022, Safemoon announced a new product, the Safemoon card.

The Safemoon card was promoted as a debit card that can be used to pay for goods using SafeMoon (and other cryptocurrencies) for a 2.5% fee. Some experts criticized paying an additional fee to pay for goods, contrasting it to Crypto.com's card which instead rewards users with a percentage return in crypto depending on how much of their native token they are holding. Although the card was supposed to be released in July 2022, as of December 2022 its release has been delayed.

2023: Liquidity pool hack and fraud indictment

On 29 March 2023, hackers exploited a security flaw in the smart contract of SafeMoon's liquidity pool which saw US$9 million worth of SFM tokens depleted from SafeMoon's liquidity pool causing a drop in the token's price. After negotiations with the SafeMoon team, the hacker agreed to return only 80% ($7 million) of the stolen liquidity and kept $2 million of the stolen tokens.

On 1 November 2023, a federal indictment was unsealed, charging SafeMoon's CEO Braden John Karony, Token Founder Kyle Nagy, and former SafeMoon employee Thomas Smith with conspiracies involving securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering in connection with SafeMoon. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York alleged that the defendants misled SafeMoon investors about the accessibility of 'locked' liquidity and engaged in personal trading.

The charges reported that as SafeMoon's market capitalization exceeded $8 billion, they fraudulently diverted millions of dollars from the 'locked' liquidity for personal gain. Karony and Smith were arrested, while Nagy remained at large. The charges were brought by the SEC and the Department of Justice with FBI assistance.

2024-present: Bakruptcy and Legacy

In December 2023, SafeMoon declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which was approved in March 2024. As a result, the court ordered Safemoon to liquidate remaining crypto assets and liquidity pools, formally killing the project's ecosystem and leaving the token virtually untradable. and as a part of this process was acquired by the VGX Foundation.

In 2024, Kyle Nagy resurfaced in Russia, where he filed a complaint with police against two men in the Federal Security Service who extorted 4.5 million dollars from him as "payment for his peaceful stay in the Russian Federation."

Following a highly publicized 12-day trial in May 2025 at a Brooklyn federal courthouse, former CEO Braden John Karony was convicted on all counts of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Evidence proved he misled investors by siphoning millions from "locked" liquidity pools to buy luxury real estate and sports cars.