PROTECTING INVESTORS. RESTORING INTEGRITY. ENFORCING ACCOUNTABILITY.

Misconduct leaves a record. We recover what it cost you.

We investigate misleading, reckless or unfair conduct behind Web3 investment losses and pursue recovery of investor capital where the evidence supports it.

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TRACK RECORD

Selective by design.

Higher Ground does not pursue every failed investment. We take on a matter only when the evidence supports recovery, the counterparties can be identified, and a path to resolution exists.

No recovery, no fee. Subject to engagement terms.

$142B

TOTAL FUNDING RAISED BY WEB3 COMPANIES

25%

MET OUR THRESHOLD FOR ACCEPTANCE

78%
  • 78% RESULTED IN PRIVATE SETTLEMENT
  • 22% PROGRESSED TO FORMAL ESCALATION
WHEN A LOSS MAY BE MORE THAN MARKET RISK

Recognising the signs.

01FOUNDER WITHDRAWAL

Did the founders stop communicating while liquidity and on-chain activity quietly dried up?

A founder who is still building usually keeps talking, even when the news is bad. When updates thin out, social channels go dormant, and liquidity slips lower month over month, it often means the team has moved on before telling its investors.

02MANUFACTURED DEMAND

Was the project promoted through paid influencers or coordinated activity designed to look organic?

Coordinated influencer campaigns, bot-driven engagement and undisclosed partnerships with community voices are easy to trace after the fact. If the excitement around your raise was manufactured rather than organic, the record usually shows it.

03DELAYED DISTRIBUTION

Were your tokens delayed while insiders or other holders could already trade?

Your distribution date slips, while insiders, advisors or OTC counterparties already appear to be trading. On-chain timestamps and allocation records are how we test whether that timing was a coincidence.

04LAUNCH PROMISES

Did the raise cite exchange listings or launchpad commitments as confirmed, when they weren’t?

Roadmap milestones, partnerships or listing commitments presented as secured, when they weren’t, are a recognised pattern in enforcement actions, not just a missed target.

05PARALLEL RAISES

Did the project run additional raises on materially better terms without informing investors?

A bridge round, OTC allocation or side letter offered on terms better than yours, and never disclosed to you, is one of the clearest signs worth examining closely.

06TERMS CHANGED

Were the terms of your investment changed after you had already committed capital?

A valuation, allocation, vesting schedule, discount rate or liquidation term quietly revised after your SAFT or side letter was signed, often citing updated tokenomics and sometimes benefiting founders or insiders at the expense of earlier holders, is a change to the economic bargain you didn’t agree to. The terms changed only after it was too late for you to walk away.

If any of these patterns are familiar, tell us what happened. Higher Ground reviews every submission confidentially and responds within 72 hours.

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PROCESS

Each matter moves through the same five stages.

What reaches a founder has already been tested. What reaches counsel or a regulator has already been built. Every matter ends one of two ways: repayment, or escalation to the appropriate legal or regulatory pathway.

CASE STUDIES

What we’ve recovered.

These summaries are anonymised and, where necessary, generalised to protect confidentiality. Figures reflect actual outcomes.

$12M+ raised

AI/DeSci token protocol — Europe

SUMMARY

An undisclosed network of compensated promoters was used to market the token, and tokenomics disclosures were altered after the raise closed. The matter was resolved through direct engagement once the promotional and token-distribution records were verified.

ISSUES INVESTIGATED

  • Unregistered securities offering to a U.S. investor
  • Undisclosed compensated promoter (“KOL”) network
  • Selective and altered tokenomics disclosure
  • Investor fund accountability

OUTCOME

  • $180K

    AMOUNT RECOVERED

  • 2

    NUMBER OF INVESTORS

  • 6 Weeks

    TIMELINE FOR RESOLUTION

$5.6M+ raised

Web3 gaming studio — Southeast Asia

SUMMARY

Presale proceeds earmarked for game development were redirected to an unrelated mobile app venture, while the in-game token’s play-to-earn reward pool was drained by wallets linked to the founding team. The matter was resolved through direct engagement once wallet clustering and internal financial records confirmed the diversion.

ISSUES INVESTIGATED

  • NFT presale proceeds diverted to an unrelated venture
  • Reward-pool token dumps by founder-linked wallets
  • Non-delivery of promised game milestones
  • Misrepresented play-to-earn economy sustainability

OUTCOME

  • $310K

    AMOUNT RECOVERED

  • 7

    NUMBER OF INVESTORS

  • 3 Weeks

    TIMELINE FOR RESOLUTION

$12.2M+ raised

Layer-2 network protocol — Asia-Pacific

SUMMARY

A private token raise conducted under SAFTs was followed by a public liquidity-bootstrapping sale marketed globally with no U.S.-person screening, while token delivery to early investors was delayed for over a year alongside undisclosed founder conflicts of interest. The matter was resolved through direct engagement once the delivery and disclosure record was verified.

ISSUES INVESTIGATED

  • Unregistered securities offering spanning private SAFTs and a public token sale
  • Undisclosed compensated promoter (“KOL”) network
  • Selective pre-announcement disclosure ahead of exchange listings
  • Undisclosed founder conflicts of interest and delayed token delivery

OUTCOME

  • $70K

    AMOUNT RECOVERED

  • 1

    NUMBER OF INVESTORS

  • 12 Days

    TIMELINE FOR RESOLUTION

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WHY HIGHER GROUND

Built by people who have operated in Web3, not around it.

Our team includes Web3 investors, operators and lawyers with backgrounds in corporate and securities law. Our founding team brings more than 30 years of combined experience, and collectively, our members have built, advised and invested in hundreds of Web3 projects.

01 — BOTH SIDES OF A RAISE

Our team has raised capital as founders and evaluated it as investors, sitting on both sides of the same table for hundreds of Web3 projects.

02 — REGULATORY FLUENCY

Members of our team have backgrounds in corporate and securities law. Every matter is legally grounded and tested against the regulatory standards that applied when the capital was raised.

03 — STRUCTURED FOR WEB3’S COMPLEXITY

Web3 matters rarely sit within one document, entity or jurisdiction. Capital moves through wallets, corporate structures cross borders, and promotion spreads through private channels. We are built to follow it.

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TEAM & MEDIA

IN THEIR WORDS

I had been told the money was simply gone. Higher Ground were the first people to tell me what could actually be done about it.

IN THE NEWS

Business Insider

Higher Ground Expands International Web3 Recovery Capability

Read the announcement

ALSO FEATURED IN

BloombergReutersThe Wall Street Journal
EXPERT NETWORK

The experts we turn to.

JWJason Williams

Jason Williams

Head of Fraud and Corruption Division

SFO logo
MZMadiha Zuberi

Madiha Zuberi

Senior Counsel, Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies

SEC logo
JMJaime Marinaro

Jaime Marinaro

Associate Director, Division of Enforcement

SEC logo
AMAnthony Monaghan

Anthony Monaghan

Director of Investigations, Enforcement & Market Oversight

FCA logo
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Questions, answered.

The essentials on how we investigate, what it costs and how we keep every case confidential. If your question isn’t here, ask us directly.

Ask us directly

Most crypto recovery services focus on tracing stolen assets or recovering funds lost to hacks and scams.

Higher Ground investigates what happened before the loss occurred: whether founders, directors or others who controlled investor capital met the commitments, representations and obligations on which funds were raised. Our work combines commercial investigation, regulatory analysis and recovery strategy.

Each investment is also tested against the securities and financial-services laws that applied when the capital was raised. In the United States, this includes whether the offer or sale may constitute an investment contract under the Howey test, and whether it was properly registered or exempt. In other jurisdictions, we apply the corresponding legal and regulatory tests.

Where the evidence supports it, we prepare the matter for formal escalation.

We investigate private-market Web3 investments and contractual claims involving token or equity consideration, including:

  • SAFTs and other pre-TGE token allocations
  • OTC and private token purchases
  • Equity, SAFE and convertible-note investments
  • Advisory agreements involving tokens, equity or other performance-based consideration

We generally do not investigate ordinary public-market trading losses unless there is evidence that misconduct materially contributed to the loss.

No. Historically, around one in four applications has met our threshold for acceptance. We generally require a minimum investment of $25,000, and also look at the strength and availability of the evidence, whether the responsible parties can be identified, the relevant legal and regulatory obligations, and whether there is a realistic pathway to recovery.

Every applicant receives a response within 72 hours, confirming whether we wish to proceed or explaining what would be needed for the matter to advance.

Yes. Where appropriate, we group applications relating to the same project and draw on our wider venture network to build the strongest possible position collectively. If you know other investors affected by the same matter, we may ask to open a group dialogue, since a coordinated submission is often more effective than several separate ones. We accept both individual and group applications.

Higher Ground works on a contingency basis. We absorb the full cost of investigation, legal analysis, forensic work and evidence-building, and only earn a fee if a matter results in recovery.

That fee is a percentage of the amount recovered, agreed with the client at acceptance and set according to the size, complexity and risk profile of the matter. Because we succeed only when our clients do, we’re selective about the matters we take on.

Our team conducts an initial assessment of the facts, documents and available evidence.

If accepted, we contact you directly to begin gathering evidence, provide a checklist of what’s required, and support you in compiling it through a secure, confidential filing system. Building a complete evidential record typically takes around 10 days.

We then engage privately with the relevant parties to seek a repayment, which typically takes a further three weeks depending on the counterparty’s responsiveness. Escalation remains available throughout if a resolution isn’t reached.

Client information and case details are kept private throughout. We don’t disclose your identity, submission or evidence to the public, media or any third party outside the matter itself.

The counterparty is only made aware of a claim once we’re ready to open resolution discussions, and any settlement is subject to a non-disclosure agreement as standard; nothing enters the public domain. We apply strict information-handling and data-security protocols at every stage.

No. Higher Ground operates across multiple jurisdictions, since Web3 investments, founders, corporate structures and investor funds often span several countries. Our investigations regularly involve cross-border evidence and multiple legal systems, and we work with specialist legal, forensic and regulatory professionals in each relevant jurisdiction.

Because we approach counterparties with a developed evidential position and a clear path forward. Every accepted case is built to an escalation-ready standard from the outset, so it can support regulatory, civil or enforcement action if a private resolution isn’t reached.

We generally seek a confidential resolution first, since it’s usually the most efficient outcome for both sides. If that doesn’t succeed, we escalate through our network of legal, forensic and enforcement specialists. Early engagement allows for private resolution; not engaging simply determines which path the matter takes next.

INSIGHTS

Analysis and regulatory filings.

Analysis of investor losses and misconduct patterns, alongside the regulatory filings and enforcement actions we have tracked.

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