Bitcoin Forum

This has me wondering - if China has two $ BILLION + crypto scams collapse within months of each other, how will their government respond!?

There had been so many warnings on the possibility that PlusToken was just operating a big ponzi scheme but greed was the prime motivating factor which lead many people to believe that they found the best opportunity to make money just passively. In fact, members of the scheme even defended to high heavens the program thinking that it will not end or that the government will not do anything to stop the carnage PlusToken was into. The government had no choice but to act accordingly when it was already clear PlusToken was just another scam but this time the amount was really unbelievably huge, probably earning the title as the largest scam for 2019.

I don't think the government in China will notice or care because they think they banned bitcoin already so problem solved as far as they are concerned.

Just read the article, and it does appear the Chinese government responded. They are treating it like any other illegal ponzi.

China will control all crypto projects and most likely will ban unauthorized ones that you talk about. China will create its own cryptocurrency and this will be centralized in my opinion, and everything that will be done without the participation of the government will subject to strict regulation up to a ban. This is my opinion about the nearest crypto future of China

Indeed! They responded suitably by arresting the owners of plus token. That's the maximum a government can do in such financial crimes and let the court decide the next course of action.

But the action against plus token has to be severe and exemplary so that a strong message goes to the scammers and a public awareness is built. This way the common mass can detect any similar activities happening in the market, like cloud token!

You don't need to take a negative viewpoint towards crypto-currencies here, China has already acknowledged that they are a good source for future development and possible the next step in a globalized economy.

Regarding that scam, it could have likely happened with fiat currencies, crypto-currencies are only being used as a payment method here and it's like making the same argument that money laundering is only possible due to crypto, which is just not true.

I believe they are dealing with it like a norma ponzi, nothing special.

Aren't you also wondering why china banned Bitcoin, rushing to adopt blockchain and to create their own crypto currency? That might be the answer. There are always two sides (bad and good) : It's bad when China or any country decided to ban Bitcoin and other crypto but it is actually to avoid their citizen from being scammed.

As the article mentioned there are 10 million victims, I don't believe that none of them realized they are in ponzi circle. Sometimes people intentionally join ponzi-scheme and wishing they are not the last person who joined it so they can still make money even though they realize that it will soon turns into a scam.

The governments generally respond according to the people's response. If the people are done with cryptoccurrencies due to such scams and losing money then governments will be forced to discontinue such things while if the people think that it is merely a scam done by one company and others need not be shut down for it then governments will act accordingly. Basically governments are reflection of people's thinking. As of now people have an approach that only a few companies are scammy while crypto projects as a whole are great but it's not necessary that this thinking would survive in longer term if such projects continue to come.

Eh, usually governments won't care unless an outrage is already done by the people or the subject matter has become highly publicized that international news media outlets have been covering it. The Chinese government responded accordingly as to what a normal working government should: apprehend those who are related with the said scam and get them behind bars. I'm currently watching the development of this scam but this is something way bigger than bitconnect, but much less publicized and covered though.

When some scams happen, its always difficult to blame to the victims because of the nature of such scams as the various obvious signs to show scams are not present at the same time does not stay long for it to attract the attention of analytics to critique it and bring light to those to who might be caught in the web. The same cannot be said in the case of BitConnect especially as I remember vividly at the time that there was noise in and outside the forum but those affected felt its is 'right' investment move for them eventually they got bitten and the same thing is applicable to PlusToken and another one will come with another approach where several other people will fall for it as well.

uh , how else do you expect the Chinese government to respond?
they arrested the owners , you don't really expect them to issue a statement that this should not be done again?  :D
or have the gullible and greedy who have invested into this scam brain checked?
apparently , this sort of scam projects will thrive regardless of a country they are hosted at
people will always be greedy and not ... very smart to bring their money to the scammers who promise riches , it is human psychology
the only way to prevent it to some extent , is to create awareness

If there are complaints, and the government saw that it is illegal then the only thing the government will do is to shutdown the operation and put the scammers to jail which Chinese government already done.  I think any government will do the same because it is the norms.  What ever it is, if it is illegal then it needs to be stopped and put the perpetrators to jail.

scammers have always been robbing the gullible sheep for as long as the gullible sheep existed. this is not about cryptocurrency market at all. the government can't do much about them either. they fool the newbies and they willingly hand over their money. and there is no force that can prevent foolishness!

We all know what kind of government China has. If they see that there are scammers and stealing billions worth of dollars, I'm sure they are going to chase the bad actors from behind, arrested them, tried in court and put to jail.

Heck even someone stealing electricity to mine bitcoin was arrested and was fined. What else if someone scamming people out of big money here?

This is exactly why you never buy made in china products. I don't want this statement to sound like a stereotype because yes there are exceptions as in everything. But this is what the bad pay work force created - low quality products and projects. Not only in China, but if you have been on the internet for long enough you will notice that most of the scammers in the space are from developing countries like Vietnam, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, etc.

Smart investors never got into these projects because EXPERIENCE and DUE DILIGENCE. I hope that after all these humongous scams people will learn their lesson and won't pursue their lost money by joining other scams.

their investigation is still ongoing because bitconnect-plustoken-cloudtoken scheme has the same path. But unfortunately they can only reach the prevention stage based on victim reports.

They have difficulty finding total evidence because of organized shrewdness. Catching only 1-4 people hasn't stopped anything so far. But I am curious about the enthusiasm of participants who follow, the government must start from here to monitor and be directly involved.

Not sure what you'll be able to expect here, it's a regular ponzi scheme that's only relation to crypto-currencies was that it was used as a payment method for the investors/victims, and if it was a fiat-based Ponzi, it's likely they would have dealt with it in the same way.

It looks like they have and they are continuing to arrest more owners of the project, after the scattered around China and the world and they are attempting to trace some of the crypto-currency payments, and try and figure out where they are going next, pretty basic detective stuff from the Chinese government.

There used to be a never ending rise and fall of multi level marketing scheme and pyramid scheme in the past and blockchain technology has eased that up.
Such scam grow in the expense of gullible investors who lose their money due to greed. These type of ponzi projects are prevalent in one form or other in almost every part of the world. There was even a ponzi that gave a certificate of ownership of it's coin rather than actual coin.

I was surprised that China is still a haven for big time crypto scams when the country is well known for banning cryptocurrencies! How come this fraudsters are still able to pull off the strings even after the Bitconnect and Plustoken fiascos? Does this mean that China isn't serious on its crypto crackdown or still playing dumb that it will only act when all the community funds from Chinese investors are all gone?

I think somebody or someone should report these kinds of activities to the Chinese authorities to prevent more damage because if not, I think it will encourage other evil minded people to commit the same acts again and again at the expense of its investors which could even put cryptocurrency more in bad light. Imho.

If China had already banned bitcoin way back, it's no doubt they will start to implement regulations soon to these alternate crypto-related projects. Even from the start, they don't want bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, however they are interested in the blockchain and plans to make their own. There's not much for them to do but to just implement their restrictions and we can't really do much about it. I think what we should be concerned is if the time comes that any bitcoin/altcoin related activities such as mining is strictly banned which would affect the hash rates of bitcoin.

We know that the issue of scams has greatly blurred the image of cryptocurrencies and I think it is still time for legal action to be taken and an investigation can be made to find those responsible.
From now on, the projects are examined more carefully and we have all learned lessons, it is time to bet on the massive use of cryptocurrencies.

Indeed, there are a lot of scammers nowadays that use cryptcurrencies to deceive others to get the benefits that they wanted and that is the reason why many of us had some trust issues. Well you're right, they have to suffer the consequences of their actions because it was their choice in the very first place. I think its enough reason to make people realize how being cautious might help you in a situation like that, scams had been a problem of many of us before and up until now. I don't think that the government will actually care about something like this? since most of them are only thinking for their own benefits.