Bad Moon Rising
His digital token was supposed to fly to the moon. It landed him in prison.
“I wasn’t just writing about the weather.” – John Fogerty
Braden John Karony, CEO of Utah-based SafeMoon, was sentenced to 100 months in federal prison this week for looting unwary buyers of his looney digital tokens.
At one point, the SafeMoon crypto attracted thousands of buyers and supposedly grew to $8 billion in market value. But before its price fell to Earth, Karony, 30, of Provo, Utah, diverted millions to buy homes and toys, prosecutors alleged.
SafeMoon was only supposed to go up. Never down. “Safely to the moon,” is how Karony and his co-defendants marketed the token after its launch in March 2021.
Buyers had to believe that they’d hung the moon, and that the law of gravity was repealed.
“Karony lied to investors from all walks of life – including military veterans and hard working-Americans – and defrauded thousands of victims in order to buy mansions, sports cars, and custom trucks,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella in a news release.
He was dancing in the moonlight. Then sentenced in the daylight.
Together, Karony and his co-defendants allegedly withdrew $200 million worth of crypto from the project, according to a civil complaint filed by Securities and Exchange Commission.
SafeMoon’s Chief Technology Officer Thomas Smith, 37, of Bethlehem, N.H., pleaded guilty in February 2025 to securities fraud and wire fraud charges and awaits sentencing.
SafeMoon’s token developer Kyle Nagy, 37, of Vero Beach, Fla., was no where to be found when the indictment came down in November 2023.
He apparently fled to Russia where Russian Federal Service agents allegedly extorted him out of $4.5 million, according to a report in Newsweek. U.S. authorities have not publicly confirmed that claim. But it was described as “payment for his peaceful stay in the Russian Federation.”
Just goes to show, there is no safe moon.
