Founder of Solana Token Launchpad Believe Arrested on Assault, Strangulation Charges

In brief

• Prosecutors charged Benjamin Pasternak with strangulation and assault over a March 31 incident.
• Pasternak was arraigned and pleaded not guilty; his next court date is in June.
• The arrest adds to mounting legal troubles over allegedly deceptive token sales.

Benjamin Pasternak, founder of the Solana-based token launchpad Believe, was arrested Tuesday and charged with one count of second-degree strangulation and two counts of third-degree assault with intent to cause physical injury over a March 31 incident.

Pasternak has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to return to court June 11, per court records in the New York State Unified Court System.

The arrest comes as Pasternak faces civil allegations, as well. A class action lawsuit filed March 23 in the Southern District of New York alleges Pasternak claimed "zero ownership" in the Believe platform's tokens while ostensibly collecting creator fees on every trade, reneging on at least 12 public buyback promises and executing a token migration that allegedly diluted holders by about 33%.

The complaint alleges Pasternak "ran the same play three times, under three different token names" across $PASTERNAK, $LAUNCHCOIN, and $BELIEVE, as the Believe platform processed roughly $6 billion in trading volume and extracted an estimated $54 million in fees.

Holders who failed to convert their tokens by the October 29, 2025 migration deadline saw their balances permanently destroyed, per the filing, which estimates consumer losses in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The suit brings six claims spanning New York consumer protection law, California false advertising statutes, and common law theories. Plaintiffs also seek an injunction freezing on-chain assets, including the flywheel wallet and token treasury.

Pasternak co-founded plant-based food company Simulate in early 2018, raising $50 million in a Series B round at a $260 million valuation before selling the company in October 2024. He launched his first crypto token the following January.

Late last year, Avi Patel, founder of decentralized data marketplace Kled, accused Pasternak of dumping KLED tokens on the open market in breach of a private OTC-only agreement.

Patel alleged that Pasternak sold more than 1% of the KLED supply during the project's September app launch, then resumed selling during a later update. The Kled team repurchased Pasternak's position twice over the counter, reducing his stake in the project from 6% to 1.7%.

The Believe platform's native token has crashed 99.8% since its May 2025 all-time high at $0.35, and has fallen nearly 15% on the day to a recent price of $0.0007, per CoinGecko data.

Burwick Law, counsel for the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Decrypt reached out to Believe for comment but did not immediately receive a response.