One of the darkest stories in the crypto world finally seems to have come to an end. Faruk Ozer, once considered Turkey's youngest crypto success story, died in a high-security prison in Tekirdağ. This man founded the exchange called Thodex and attracted over 400,000 users. The platform, which rapidly grew with daily transaction volumes worth billions of dollars, suddenly disappeared. A loss of $2.6 billion. Chainalysis recorded this as one of the biggest exchange scams in a decade.

Ozer had managed to escape to Albania but was caught in 2022. After being extradited to Turkey, he faced an incredible prison sentence of 196 years. In fact, the total sentence was 11,196 years, but still. He claimed he did not commit any crimes and that things went wrong solely due to regulatory uncertainty. His siblings received the same sentence.

After the decision in September 2023, Faruk's death in prison revealed the true face of the rapid rise and fall in the crypto industry. This incident shows how thin the line is between innovation and crime. The Thodex case will remain as Turkey's darkest chapter during its crypto boom period. Seeing such an end after a jail sentence seems to be proof of how wild and unregulated the crypto industry still is.