Charles Ponzi — $20 Million (1920)

Charles Ponzi set the template for all pyramid frauds, promising 50% returns in 45 days via international postal reply coupon arbitrage. The scheme collapsed after the Boston Globe exposed the arbitrage impossibility, with 40,000 investors losing $20 million — around $300 million in today's dollars. That scale is 30% larger than Bitconnect's inflation-adjusted take of $2.5 billion, even though Bitconnect operated across global crypto markets.