A new on-chain development has emerged as 26-year-old Ben Pasternak, B24, Inc., and the Believe Foundation face a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Filed on March 23, 2026, the case alleges that Pasternak misled investors through token sales and a forced migration, resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses. The Solana-based platform, formerly known as Clout.me, enabled users to create tokens via a no-code interface. Its native token, LAUNCHCOIN, reached a peak market cap of $370 million before collapsing. The lawsuit also points to a 33.3% supply inflation during the migration to BELIEVE, with no compensation provided to original token holders. New token listings on such platforms are now under heightened scrutiny following this legal action. Pasternak has not publicly responded.

Original author: Nicky, Foresight News

On March 23, 2026, a complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, formally naming 26-year-old Australian entrepreneur Ben Pasternak and his entities, B24, Inc. and Believe Foundation, as defendants.

This class action lawsuit, initiated by investors Joshua Lee and Pierre Montmeas, accuses Pasternak of engaging in deceptive business practices and false advertising through three consecutive token offerings and a forced migration, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to consumers. It has been nearly six months since his last original social media post.

At the heart of this lawsuit is Believe, a Solana ecosystem application. Believe (formerly Clout.me) is a Solana-based social token launch platform launched in 2025 and founded by Pasternak. Users can create tokens without coding by simply posting a tweet on X containing "@launchcoin+ token name," using a bonding curve mechanism that automatically upgrades the token to a Meteora liquidity pool once its market cap reaches $100,000. Positioned as an "idea crowdfunding platform," the platform's native token, LAUNCHCOIN, reached a peak market cap of $370 million in May 2025.

According to the indictment, Pasternak launched the token named PASTERNAK in January 2025 and publicly declared on the same day that he held "0 ownership" of the token. This statement successfully cultivated a trust narrative of "no insider allocation," pushing the token’s market capitalization to $80 million on its first day. However, within a week, the price collapsed by over 95%, and by March 2025, the market capitalization had dwindled to approximately $190,000.

On April 28, 2025, the platform was renamed from Clout to Believe; on May 2, PASTERNAK’s on-chain metadata was updated to LAUNCHCOIN, though the token contract itself was not redeployed. The indictment states that in mid-May, LAUNCHCOIN’s market capitalization briefly exceeded $240 million, reaching a historic high of $0.3647. Thereafter, the price continued to decline, while Pasternak and Believe’s official accounts publicly committed at least twelve times during this period to launch a “flywheel” buyback mechanism—using platform fee revenue to purchase tokens on the open market in order to support the price.

On October 15, 2025, the Believe team announced the mandatory migration of LAUNCHCOIN to the new token BELIEVE. Holders must complete the 1:1 exchange by October 29; any tokens not migrated after this date will be permanently destroyed.

Meanwhile, the total supply of the new tokens expanded from 1 billion to approximately 1.333 billion, an increase of 33.3%. The indictment details the allocation of the newly issued tokens: approximately 17% allocated to current and future contributors, with a four-year vesting period and a one-year lock-up; approximately 5% allocated to early investors, subject to a one-year lock-up; and approximately 3% allocated to the foundation, with no lock-up restrictions and immediate availability.

Original LAUNCHCOIN holders received no additional compensation, and their ownership stakes were directly diluted.

The complaint further states that Pasternak publicly declared on the day of the migration that “no individual or entity would receive tokens for at least one year,” a statement that directly contradicts the immediate unlocking of approximately 40 million tokens by the foundation. Additionally, the Believe team described the supply increase as “25%,” while the actual mathematical calculation is approximately 33%, a discrepancy that has sparked widespread skepticism and mockery within the crypto community.

In terms of its platform economic model, Believe charges approximately a 2% fee on each transaction, initially split equally between the token creator and the platform; after June 2025, the split was adjusted to 70% for the creator and 30% for the platform. The platform also implemented a “scout” mechanism, whereby the first user to trigger a token’s launch receives 0.1% of subsequent transaction fees. The indictment estimates that Believe processed approximately $6 billion in transaction volume, generating total platform fee revenue of about $54 million.

As the creator of PASTERNAK, LAUNCHCOIN, and BELIEVE, Pasternak personally continues to receive creator fee royalties. The indictment also states that during the week the migration announcement was released, on-chain data showed significant selling activity from top wallet addresses.

Pasternak’s last original tweet was posted on October 16, 2025. In this lengthy post, he acknowledged for the first time that he had never purchased any Solana tokens before launching the first token, reiterated that the team received no token allocation in the initial issuance, clarified a misstatement regarding supply growth, and committed that the foundation will not sell its holdings, instead initiating a buyback flywheel after the migration is complete.

On January 14, 2026, he retweeted a tweet from the official Believe account stating: "The concept of Believe v2 is simple: track everyone's real-time emotions."

Believe's official account updates also ended on that day, with the last tweet announcing: "New market live: Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) is now available for trading." Since then, both Pasternak personally and the project’s official channels have fallen completely silent on social media.

Believe v2, launched in January 2026, attempted to shift toward an "emotion market," allowing users to bet on the real-time popularity of public figures through perpetual two-way markets, but failed to regain market attention. As of the filing date, the BELIEVE token's market capitalization was approximately $1.2 million, having evaporated from its all-time high.

This lawsuit invokes New York General Business Law Sections 349 and 350, as well as California’s Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law, and also asserts common law claims for negligent misrepresentation and unjust enrichment. The plaintiff seeks court orders requiring the defendants to compensate for actual damages, refund platform and creator fees, and, where necessary, impose constructive trusts and injunctive relief on traceable digital assets.

Documents show that Pasternak resides in Manhattan, New York, and the registered address of B24, Inc., which he controls, is also in New York, with platform operations and development clearly tied to this jurisdiction. As of publication, he has not publicly responded to the lawsuit nor disclosed the specific amount of personal profits he obtained from the Believe project.

Legendary adolescence

Before this legal storm, Pasternak’s life story was nothing short of legendary. Born on September 6, 1999, in Sydney, Australia, to a Jewish family, he grew up in the suburb of Woollahra. At age 13, he taught himself to code, and in 2014, at just 14 years old, he collaborated with an engineer from Chicago during a school science class to develop the iOS game “Impossible Rush” in just a few hours. The game garnered millions of downloads and briefly reached No. 16 on the overall U.S. App Store chart. Media outlets quickly picked up the story, dubbing him “the next Zuckerberg.”

In January 2015, 15-year-old Pasternak dropped out of high school and flew alone to New York to seek venture capital, turning down internship offers from Facebook and Google. In April of the same year, he founded Flogg, a social shopping app for teens, and raised approximately $2 million from institutions including Binary Capital and Greylock Partners.

Flogg underperformed and was shut down at the end of 2016. He immediately redirected his resources to a new project, Monkey, a video chat app for teenagers.

Monkey has over 20 million accumulated users and was acquired in 2018 by the Chinese company Holla, becoming his first successful startup sale during his teenage years.

Starting in 2018, Pasternak shifted to the food technology sector, co-founding Simulate and launching the plant-based chicken nuggets NUGGS. The project received support from prominent investors including Alexis Ohanian, Jay-Z, and McCain Foods, raising over $50 million in 2021 and reaching a valuation of more than $250 million. That same year, he was named to Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list.

From mobile apps to food technology, and then to Web3, Pasternak has consistently positioned himself at the forefront of emerging trends, each transition accompanied by significant controversy and risk. Yet, as he became entangled in legal battles, his personal life also underwent dramatic turns.

Since the second half of 2024, Pasternak has been publicly dating TikTok influencer Evelyn Ha, one of the three influential Ha sisters on social media. Pasternak frequently shares their luxurious interactions on social platforms.

However, in early April 2026, netizens noticed that the three Ha sisters simultaneously unfollowed him on Instagram, and Evelyn was later revealed to be closely involved with a Twitch streamer. The public widely interpreted this series of actions as a sign that their relationship had ended, with some in the crypto community joking, “Now we can finally redirect the Hermès budget back into the wheel.”

From a teenager writing apps in a Sydney high school classroom to a startup founder standing at the defendant’s table in a New York federal court, Ben Pasternak’s 26th year has been engulfed by both legal and emotional turmoil. Once hailed by the media as “the next Zuckerberg,” his name is now more often associated with “fraud,” “collapse,” and “unfollow.”

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