MyScheme

MyScheme is one of the first explicitly Ponzi-structured contracts deployed on Ethereum mainnet, launched at block 49,924 on August 7, 2015 — 8 days after the Ethereum genesis block. Deployed by address 0x881b0a4e, the contract implements a six-slot binary tree where early participants receive payouts funded by later entrants.

The contract accepts investments of at least 1 ETH. Each new investor is added to a tree array (maximum 6 positions). Funds accumulate in the contract and are distributed upward through the tree structure as new investors join. The deployer occupies position 0 — the apex of the tree — and receives the largest share of incoming funds.

The source code is verified on Etherscan and clearly documents the tree structure: treeBalance, numInvestorsMinusOne, treeDepth, and the myTree address array. The fallback function handles incoming payments and routes them through the pyramid.

There is no documented activity suggesting the scheme attracted significant participation. It appears to have been an early experiment in on-chain incentive structures rather than an active fraud.