Bitcoin Forum

‘48 Percent Returns Monthly’: How 32,000 Vietnam Investors Got Caught By Ponzi Scheme

What could well become known as the largest Initial Coin Offering (ICO) scam in history has highlighted the need for the cryptocurrency community to promote financial education.

On Monday, April 9, Vietnamese media reported that nearly $660 mln of investors’ money had been stolen by two separate ICO’s, run by a parent company operating out of Ho Chi Minh city.

iFan and Pincoin, the two ICOs in question, are believed to have been setup and operated by Modern Tech according to the initial report from Tuoi Tre News, a local news outlet. Around 32,000 investors were reportedly duped by the scams and lobbied outside the offices of Modern Tech in Ho Chi Minh on April 8, although the owners had liquidated the company and evacuated their office space more than a month ago. Both ICOs are being described as multi-level marketing ponzi schemes.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/48-percent-returns-monthly-how-32000-vietnam-investors-got-caught-by-ponzi-scheme

That's a shame. The excitement generated by legitimate cryptocurrency gives cover to fraudsters. This is a fact of life that comes along with any kind of success. But expect cryptocurrency in general to get the blame, although stock and insurance scams don't seem to have the same effect.

As long as there aren't any clear rules concerning ICO's, and thus scammers have plenty of freedom to exploit in this market, literally nothing will change. In this case, the blame should be going more towards the slow ass authorities with their time wasting back and forth movements than anything else. It's purely the freedom that gives scammers the incentive they need to continue these nasty practices. If you have the freedom to act like this as a crook, where on top of that people in this market are insanely greedy and retarded, you basically have a guaranteed source of problems that will keep occurring time on time again. It's not the first scam going down, and definitely not the last. I am waiting to see the first billion dollar scam pop up in the coming years -- it's just a matter of time.

Some people just have to fall into a trap to learn, warnings won';t work on them.
While for most of us it's common knowledge that if somebody promises ridiculous returns it has to be a scam, others will fall for it. I've been on the forum for a while and it's scary to watch how people get blinded by empty promises. For instance cloud mining which is known to generate profit for a small number of its users, while the majority is getting scammed is still a popular thing. People are intentionally joining HYIPs on the forum, or working for companies that are promising to pay them after the ICO (there are groups of people posing as a company asking people to join their team and work for free in "project development").
I don't feel for those Vietnamese investors. They got blinded by greed and lost.

Although there are also scams in stock and insurance companies, they may not have the same effect as compared when there's a scam in the crypto community because probably crypto is unfamiliar to the public. The public has more trust over the stock and insurance companies because they see it as legit and has been established over the years. Even while there are scams among them, they feel safer nonetheless.

Unfortunately, fraud always comes with success. This affects not only to the cryptocurrency but any currency, asset or project. There's nothing you can do about it, that's bad that such fraud schemes tarnish on the entire crypto economy in general.

This once again shows that the ICO process needs to be regulated, this issue has long been ripe. Apparently, regulation should be carried out in each country by state bodies or public organizations along with the decision of the issue of legalization of the crypto currency. Now, France, Russia and Japan announced the beginning of such regulation and development of corresponding rules.

This is the reason why some countries decided to ban ICOs because they know that without proper regulation, there would always be people who would take advantage of it being unregulated thus it is not easy for them to be held accountable. As for the investors, being a HYIP, it is already a red flag but still there would be more people who would invest in this kind of scheme taking the shot because they wouldn't want to miss it even though there is already a possibility that the people behind the ICO would ran away.

This news would have a big impact to the people and even if a cryptocurrency has been existing for a period of time (not ICO), some would not even take a look at it because they would have a perception that cryptocurrencies are just scam.

I bet that these monthly are hard-earned money from investors. It's has the same concept just like bitconnect. The government should offer a free consultation for people who want to invest in something to to put a stop on these pyramiding schemes.

This news somehow accuses all ICOs of being a scam. That's why facebook and other giant companies ban crypto ads and reject to deal with it in all spheres

Not a secret that 3 out of 4 ICOs are not profitable, near 20% are scam from the beginning... but people don't listen, they invest is scam and become angry after the money loss