Launch Coin on Believe crypto class action alleges founder Ben Pasternak misled token investors

A class action lawsuit filed March 23, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York alleges Ben Pasternak, B24 Inc. and the Believe Foundation misled cryptocurrency investors through a series of alleged false statements tied to multiple digital tokens.

Plaintiffs Joshua Lee, a California resident, and Pierre Montmeas, a French citizen, brought the case on behalf of all people who purchased, acquired or held $PASTERNAK, $LAUNCHCOIN or $BELIEVE tokens from Jan. 8, 2025, through March 23, 2026, and suffered financial losses as a result.

The defendants also include 10 unnamed individuals or entities referred to as Does 1 through 10. The lawsut estimates consumer damages at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Pasternak and the Believe platform

In January 2025, serial entrepreneur Ben Pasternak launched a cryptocurrency venture: a Solana-based token launchpad initially called Clout. Pasternak allegedly designed Cloud to eliminate barriers to creating and trading digital tokens, making cryptocurrency accessible to a broad pool of everyday people, including many with little or no prior experience in digital assets.

B24 Inc. developed and maintained the platform. The Believe Foundation separately controlled the token treasury and the buyback wallet, allegedly giving the defendants collective influence over large portions of the token supply.

By the time the plaintiffs filed the lawsuit, the platform had processed more than $6 billion in cumulative trading volume. The complaint claims the defendants extracted approximately $54 million in total platform fees over that period. Pasternak personally earned creator fees on every transaction he created involving token, according to the lawsuit.

Alleged misrepresentations and a series of token collapses

According to the complaint, the deceptions began with the platform's first token. On Jan. 24, 2025, Pasternak launched the $PASTERNAK token and publicly announced on X that he had zero ownership in the token. The lawsuit alleges that statement was false and intended to build consumer trust by suggesting insiders had no financial stake in the token's price movements.

The token initially surged to $80 million in market capitalization within a single day, drawing widespread attention to the platform and attracting a large base of retail investors. The token then collapsed over 99.7%, falling to approximately $190,000 by March 2025.

Despite the dramatic failure of his first token, the lawsuit claims Pasternak returned under a new brand. On April 28, 2025, he rebranded Clout as Believe. Four days later, on May 2, 2025, he renamed the platform's primary token $LAUNCHCOIN. The token saw a sharp run-up between May 12 and May 15, 2025, reaching an all-time high of $0.3647 and a peak market capitalization of more than $240 million.

However, from May through October 2025, $LAUNCHCOIN's price declined more than 99% while Pasternak made at least 12 separate public statements about a "flywheel" buyback mechanism. As described in the complaint, that mechanism was supposed to channel platform fees back into the open market to purchase tokens and theoretically support their price.

The buybacks never materialized, according to the lawsuit. Instead, the team urged investors to hold their positions through the steep decline. The complaint cites statements including, "Short term price action is irrelevant. Trust the process" and "Stop Trading. Believe in something." The lawsuit claims Pasternak issued the messaging to prevent retail investors from exiting their positions.

Forced migration

On Oct. 15, 2025, rather than delivering the promised buybacks, Pasternak announced a forced migration from $LAUNCHCOIN to a new token called $BELIEVE. The complaint describes the event as an undisclosed and harmful dilution that benefited insiders at the expense of retail investors.

The total token supply grew from 1,000,000,000 to 1,333,333,284 tokens, a 33.3% increase. The defendants allegedly publicly characterized it as only a "25% increase," a description the complaint calls materially misleading. The lawsuit claims Believe distributed the new tokens to insiders. Existing holders allegedly received no additional tokens to offset the dilution.

Investors who did not complete the migration by Oct. 29, 2025, lost their entire investment. Believe permanently destroyed their unmigrated tokens through a process known in cryptocurrency as "burning." The migration announcement alone triggered an immediate 30% price drop, and the complaint alleges $LAUNCHCOIN ultimately declined 99.98% from its all-time high.

After Oct. 29, 2025, Pasternak and the official Believe account allegedly fell silent. According to the complaint, in January 2026, Pasternak briefly resurfaced to announce an entirely different product called Believe v2 without addressing the losses suffered by existing holders.

What does this mean for the crypto investors?

The complaint asserts six legal claims against the defendants, including deceptive business practices and false advertising under New York General Business Law sections 349 and 350, violations of California's Unfair Competition Law, violations of California's False Advertising Law, negligent misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.

The class would include any person who purchased, acquired or held the three tokens during the class period and suffered losses tied to the defendants' alleged conduct.

The lawsuit seeks actual damages, statutory damages, disgorgement of all profits allegedly obtained through improper means and restitution. It also requests injunctive relief, the imposition of a constructive trust over identifiable digital assets, attorney fees and prejudgment interest. Disgorgement would require the defendants to surrender any profits gained through conduct the court finds unlawful. A constructive trust would place specific assets under court supervision to ensure they are returned to harmed investors.