Once again, the shimmering dream of easy cashback rewards lies in ruins. The infamously controversial Austrian holding company, myWorld International AG—the latest incarnation behind a global web of loyalty and “benefit” platforms—has filed for bankruptcy in Graz, sending shockwaves through thousands of retail partners, small investors, and, of course, an army of loyal recruiters. But make no mistake: this is no ordinary corporate misstep.
From Lyoness to Lyconet to myWorld: A Legacy of Legal Landmines
myWorld’s roots are deeply entwined with Lyoness, the notorious cashback operation devised by Austro-entrepreneur Hubert Freidl in the early 2000s. Operating under various names—Lyoness, Lyconet, and now myWorld—the model offered “Shopping Points,” miracle cashbacks, and the ever-glimmering promise of passive income to anyone willing to invite their friends and open their wallets.
Yet courts from Austria to Switzerland, and across the EU, have repeatedly smashed the illusion: rulings labeled the system as nothing less than a prohibited pyramid and Ponzi scheme, relying far more on the recruitment of new “marketers” than on any genuine shopping activity. In a fiery appellate judgment from Vienna’s Higher Regional Court in June 2024, Freidl’s network was excoriated for “deception and misleading practices,” with explicit recognition that investors continued to pour money into sham structures while being systematically denied their promised returns.
The Supreme Court of Austria (OGH) reaffirmed in January 2025 that Lyconet and myWorld were simply a continuation of Lyoness’s pyramid legacy, rendering investors eligible for refunds—a legal wrecking ball that now haunts myWorld’s demise.
Victims by the Thousands: How Deep Does the Damage Go?
With this week’s filing, nearly 2,050 creditors—many of them small investors lured in by dreams of passive income—are left staring at a deficit that could balloon to as much as €64 million if court-contested tax bills come due. The company’s assets (c. €15 million) are dwarfed by its €22–23 million in liabilities, not even counting massive unresolved tax claims.
Behind the smokescreen of “cashback” and shopping perks, the reality is far grimmer: countless individuals parted with their savings, drawn in by aggressive recruitment and the mirage of benefiting from an ever-expanding network. The latest bankruptcy is not just the result of “changing customer behavior” but the unraveling of a business model deemed not just problematic, but criminally manipulative by some of Europe’s highest courts.
The Mastermind in the Shadows: Hubert Freidl
Still little-known outside these circles, Hubert Freidl is the spider at the center of this global web. A software and insurance entrepreneur who reinvented himself as a loyalty visionary, Freidl’s skill lay not in building retail ecosystems, but in crafting layers of entities (at least 50+ worldwide) to shield the operation from scrutiny and legal blowback. Despite the collapses, he remains a shadowy, unrepentant figure—a ghost CEO as elusive as the value he promised.
Julian Hosp: From Lyoness “Kingpin” to Crypto Controversy
Yet the saga doesn’t stop with Freidl. Enter Julian Hosp, the audacious former medical doctor turned blockchain influencer whose stint as a top-ranking recruiter in Lyoness has been extensively documented—especially by FinTelegram. As Lyoness’ lead man in Asia, Hosp boasted an alleged “downline” of 25,000—a figure he carefully omitted from his subsequent blockchain ventures, TenX and Cake/Bake.
Read our reports on Julian Hosp here.
Hosp later restyled himself as a crypto guru, hawking DeFiChain and Cake to a new digital audience. But here, too, old patterns repeat: Bake (formerly Cake DeFi) has plunged into financial crisis, with devastating token crashes, accusations of internal scandal, mass layoffs, and even regulatory probes by BaFin in Germany.
Meanwhile, Hosp and his co-founder are now publicly trading blame as lawsuits swirl—a familiar dance for anyone who remembers Lyoness’s confidential legal departures and non-disclosure shuffles. Once again, a throng of hopeful retail investors find themselves out of pocket, chasing promises that always seem to dissolve into air.
The Big Questions: Are Regulators and Victims Ready to Fight Back?
So what now for the thousands hoodwinked by promises of “shopping points” and blockchain wizardry? Will Freidl again slither away, hidden by a tangle of shell companies and charity sponsorships? Will Julian Hosp’s next pivot finally attract the full force of regulators exhausted by his long trail of unhappy backers?
Or—just maybe—does the spectacular collapse of myWorld signal that the era of sprawling pyramid disguises and serial reinvention is finally drawing to a close?
For now, one thing is certain: the bankrupt shell of myWorld is not just a failure of business. It’s a monument to how cunning marketing, legal whack-a-mole, and the cult of recruiting can hollow out the dreams—and bank accounts—of ordinary people around the globe.
