The Downfall of Richard Heart's Pulsechain

Richard Heart was arrested in Istanbul on October 14 after Turkish police acted on an Interpol red notice issued at Finland’s request. The episode argues that Heart’s entire crypto empire was built around his persona: Hex, PulseChain, and PulseX did not sell a technological breakthrough so much as confidence in Heart himself, and that model worked until the belief behind it collapsed. Hex is now down more than 99% from its November 2021 peak, and the broader ecosystem has been left in deep decline.

The host says the SEC alleged Heart raised over $1 billion through “sacrifice” offerings between December 2019 and April 2022, with at least $12 million allegedly spent on luxury goods including a Ferrari, a McLaren, Rolexes, and a 555 carat black diamond called the Enigma. The SEC case was dismissed in February 2025 on jurisdiction grounds, and the agency did not refile by April, allowing Heart to claim a victory lap even as Finnish authorities were building a separate tax case.

That Finnish case appears to be the one that finally caught up with him. Police suspect aggravated tax fraud involving several hundred million euros between 2020 and 2024, and the episode says the arrest also exposed PulseChain’s weakness: PLS lacks major exchange listings and the chain’s activity largely revolves around PulseX, another Heart-controlled project. With Heart now in Turkish custody, the host argues the project’s core selling point has effectively been removed.