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When you say "cryptocurrency", you would be forgiven if one of the first things that comes to mind is: "exit scam".
The exit scams refer to those clever plots, so startup blockchain collect money from investors, often through initial offerings of coins (ICO), and then disappear suddenly, along with all the funds raised.
This happens so frequently that in August, more than $ 100 million in funds helped ensure that ICOs were stolen as part of a scam at the end of 2018.
I'm really a common occurrence, chances are there is a handful that you've forgotten actually happened this year.
Although this may not be an exhaustive compendium, consider this a humble anthem to exit scammers, a lot of selfish jokes.
1. The exit scam that was, and then suddenly no
At the start of this year, just as the staggering effects of the bull market were fading, a crypto-currencies "company" decided to pull off a ridiculous advertising feat.
A startup blockchain, Savedroid, whose fame statement was raising $ 50 million through an initial offer of coins (ICO) in the fervid crypto-mania of 2017, has replaced enormously everything on its website with this meme:
What followed was an incredibly arrogant tweet from the project's founder, sitting on the beach, drinking a beer. It reads simply: "Thanks guys! Come on and out … #savedroidICO. "
Not surprisingly, many people rightly thought it was another scam coming out of the cryptocurrency, with independent Internet researchers showing their investigative skills to find out exactly where the tweets came from.
It turns out that the whole thing was a heavy PR prowess. When an outraged community called Savedroid came out to deceive the public, her team apologized by saying that it was their way of teaching the industry "a lesson".
It's hard to say if we've really learned anything, however, with the exception of Savedroid it has an absolutely bland marketing team.
2. South Korean crypto-startup disappears with $ 2.7 million
Last month, the ringleaders of the cryptocurrency scam called "Pure Bit" have imposed the final stage of their plan: to envelop all their investors.
As with all effective exit scams, the project's founders suddenly dropped out of their website and disappeared with at least 13,000 ETHs ($ 2.7M at the time).
The funds were raised through an initial offer of coins throughout November, under the pretext of launching a new highly profitable ERC-20 token through the Ethereum blockchain.
Transaction histories have shown that all investments have been moved suspiciously in the hours prior to the cancellation of their KakaoChat, along with all the social media channels related to Pure Bit.
With hindsight, there were certainly red flags. Part of the Pure Bit plan for a successful ICO was creating an apparently profitable affiliate program that resembles a Ponzi scheme.
Naturally, this included promises of dividends for the owners and prizes for the recruitment of new members.
3. A classic scam at the exit of cryptocurrency, with a vague breakthrough
This incident is undoubtedly one of the most arrogant frauds in the history of cryptocurrency.
At the beginning of the year, Prodeum caused a sensation with an apparently plausible plan to create a fruit and vegetable coding system to track products on the Ethereum blockchain.
Everything seemed fine until one night, the Prodeum site was cleaned up, replaced with one word.
The startup's Twitter page, LinkedIn profiles and white papers disappeared over the same period. A person has come forward, a person listed among the founders of the project.
In a short message on social media, he claimed to be the victim of identity theft. He begged to have never heard of "business" and was doing his best to figure out who stole his identity.
So, even if it is not clear who was behind the ICO of the fraudulent Prodeum, estimates suggest that the scammers got rid of anywhere from 430 ETH to 970 ETH.
At the time, these amounts were between $ 500,000 and $ 1 million.
4. Fraudsters cheat investors with $ 4.5 million with a fake trading algorithm
The next scam at the exit is nothing more than a warning to new cryptocurrency investors.
LoopX has promised the blockchain industry an avant-garde trading algorithm that can automatically deliver incredibly consistent profits.
"Our software handles over 10,000 transactions per second and calculates over 100 currencies at a time," said the associated marketing material. "I am always looking for those opportunities to make profits of more than 10%, which will be distributed to our members on a weekly basis".
As with all the scams at the exit, a moment came when everything ended, and the high promises turned out to be nothing more than an elaborate cunning.
Apparently all at once, the company has erased its fingerprints from social media from the internet, erasing its Facebook, Twitter, YouTubeand accounts of Telegram.
At one point, his website had stated that the total ICO commitments had been equal to 276 BTC and 2,446 ETH, which at the time were rounded to $ 4.5 million.
5. Everyone hails King of the Exit Scam – BitConnect
Yes, the BitConnect exit scam took place completely in 2018. It feels like years ago, right?
Like all clearly obvious Ponzi schemes, BitConnect has succeeded in structuring its "business" using levels. "Investors" were promised up to 40 percent of returns on all funds sent to the platform.
A four-tier system meant that revenue had to increase with more money invested.
Part of his shtick was to convince users that the infinite returns of 1% were not only possible, but guaranteed by the BitConnect system. Again, this was presumably supported by a fancy trading bot and free proprietary software.
At present, the founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin commented: "If [one percent per day] that's what they offer, so this is a [P]Onzi [scheme]".
Sure enough, as its market capitalization started to fall from its all-time high of $ 2.6 billion, BitConnect suddenly closed its doors, closing its internal trading platform and cutting off investors from their capital (at least, whatever what was left at the time).
While it is difficult to determine how much money has been stolen from investors in the life of BitConnect, you can at least read everything about how its minds have built such a boldly audacious scam, despite the heavy criticism from the cryptocurrency audience.
So please use this list as a reference to find potential red flags in new, seemingly innovative cryptocurrency projects. In 2019, finally finally shake this proverbial tail.
Published December 30, 2018 at 10:00 UTC
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