Andreas Kartrud’s first smart-contract Ponzi scheme has collapsed.

EtherChain was one of three scams Kartrud has launched, as part of his Eclipcity Ponzi factory.

Sometime over the past twenty-four hours Kartrud uploaded the following message to EtherChain’s website:

ETHERCHAIN WILL BE RELAUNCHED WHEN ETHEREUM 2.0 PROTOCOL IS FULLY RUNNING, THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE, EXPECT GREATNESS.

According to the Ethereum Foundation, ethereum 2.0 is “a long-planned upgrade to the Ethereum network”.

There is no ethereum 2.0 release date, not that it matters. EtherChain collapsed for the same reason any Ponzi scheme does, new investment ran dry.

In an attempt to delay EtherChain’s collapse, Kartrud recycled his smart-contract script to launch TronChain late last month.

TronChain has presumably also began to collapse, prompting Kartrud to launch CyberChain last week.

In our published CyberChain review, we noted Kartrud had recently traveled from his home country Sweden to Montenegro.

At the time I didn’t have any reason to believe this was nothing more than an oddly timed holiday.

Kartrud waiting till he’s out of Sweden to announce EtherChain’s collapse suggests he might be on the run.

According to the Eclipcity website, EtherChain solicited $19.4 million in ethereum. Through admin positions, a large percentage of that will have wound up in Kartrud’s pocket.