Bitcoin Forum

Economy => Scam Accusations => Topic started by: morvillz7z on January 13, 2020, 09:44:36 PM



Title: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: morvillz7z on January 13, 2020, 09:44:36 PM
What happened: Pyrrhos Gold have almost completely plagiarized their whitepaper off Pax Gold

Reference Link: https://backed-by-gold.com

Announced by: block_zebra (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2745703)

ANN: [ANN] Pyrrhos Gold (PGOLD) - The Crypto Currency Backed By Gold (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5217335.0)

  • Along with plagiarized whitepaper, content on their website/ann is stolen from Gold token
  • Their website is less than a month old.

Domain Name: backed-by-gold.com
Registry Domain ID: 2468984210_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.psi-usa.info
Registrar URL: https://www.psi-usa.info
Updated Date: 2019-12-20T09:02:50Z
Creation Date: 2019-12-18T20:46:02Z

Copy:

The token is based on Ethereum blockchain (ERC-20 standard), so transparency, privacy, security, and stability is exactly what we offer to the crypto community and precious metals investors.

Original:

The token is based on Ethereum blockchain (ERC-20 standard), so transparency, privacy, security and stability is exactly what we offer to cryptocommunity and precious metals investors

Copy:

The company's mission is to build a highly liquid, easy to use and stable digital asset on the Ethereum ecosystem backed by physical gold (where 1000 PGOLD token equals 1 gram of physical gold). We intend to become an all-in-one solution that enables investors to hedge against market volatility, make free of charge instant payments and private investments in precious metals.

Original:

The company mission is to build a highly liquid, easy to use and stable digital asset on Ethereum ecosystem backed by physical gold ( one GOLD token equals to 1 gram of physical gold). We intend to become an all-in-one solution that enables investors to hedge against market volatility, make free of charge instant payments and private investments in precious metals.



https://i.ibb.co/m4Rhfvb/pyr1.jpg (https://i.ibb.co/m4Rhfvb/pyr1.jpg) https://i.ibb.co/f4tJhc8/pax1.jpg (https://i.ibb.co/f4tJhc8/pax1.jpg)




https://i.ibb.co/pxnK3v8/pyr2.jpg (https://i.ibb.co/pxnK3v8/pyr2.jpg) https://i.ibb.co/r4HsCHc/pax2.jpg (https://i.ibb.co/r4HsCHc/pax2.jpg)




https://i.ibb.co/18zYkcM/pyr3.jpg (https://i.ibb.co/18zYkcM/pyr3.jpg) https://i.ibb.co/PwLwprH/pax3.jpg (https://i.ibb.co/PwLwprH/pax3.jpg)


Archive of the website:https://web.archive.org/web/20200113214217/https://backed-by-gold.com/
Archive of the ANN:http://archive.md/wip/QYtqX
Archive of the whitepaper: https://web.archive.org/web/20200113213800/https://backed-by-gold.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Whitepaper-PyrrhosTrustCompany-PGold-v1-5.pdf


Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: Rikafip on January 13, 2020, 10:26:42 PM
Nice catch @OP, you caught them almost immediately! :D

Their CEO Rene Cosmos was involved in one older scam from 2018, Oratium, that was discovered by @ICOEthics
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5075489.0

https://i.postimg.cc/6QrzZtS2/rene.png


They used 1 more member from Oratium. Steph Lam, Pyrrhos business manager  was also  known as Stella Elech

https://i.postimg.cc/XNCchw4K/stela.png


It looks like it might be the same team behind both of those scams, and it wouldn't be surprise at all, since these kind of scammers don't give up easily.


Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: The Sceptical Chymist on January 13, 2020, 10:35:05 PM
From the ANN:
Quote
1,000 Pyrrhos Gold in exchange will be backed by 1 gram certified gold of 999.9 purity and will be exchangeable for Gold globally if you wish to.

Hasn't this idea been tried before?  Wasn't it basically decided by everyone with a brain that it's a lousy idea to have a cryptocurrency backed by gold?  I seem to recall much discussion about this concept in general, and I don't recall there being much enthusiasm about it and in fact I remember a lot of folks expressing the view that it's not only unnecessary but it's a great way to scam people since you really have no way to verify if there's any real gold involved (unless you trust somebody's audit reports).

Anyway, good catch OP.  I can't believe these projects are still plagiarizing other projects' whitepapers.  Hopefully nobody invests in this project, but I'm afraid there are going to be suckers who will.


Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: stompix on January 14, 2020, 09:48:35 AM
Hasn't this idea been tried before?  Wasn't it basically decided by everyone with a brain that it's a lousy idea to have a cryptocurrency backed by gold?  I seem to recall much discussion about this concept in general, and I don't recall there being much enthusiasm about it and in fact I remember a lot of folks expressing the view that it's not only unnecessary but it's a great way to scam people since you really have no way to verify if there's any real gold involved (unless you trust somebody's audit reports).

A lot of times and a lot of times it has failed.
There were a lot of them and there are still 'projects" that claim the same, a coin backed by real gold with some minor variations, it's either a gold mine, gold in some safe in Switzerland, gold that is purchased on your behalf and so on and on.

Still, there is one such platform/coin that has a signature campaign and has been running for about 6 months here and seems like they are going to be here for a while, but what caught my eye and probably the reason they have not disappeared is that they actually keep their number low and quite realistic, something below a million $.




Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: morvillz7z on January 14, 2020, 03:29:26 PM
@Rikafip
Thank you for providing the extra info. There was so much plagiarism going on that i completely forgot to check out their team.
With that said, i've added a flag now, in case anyone else wants to support it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=1243


Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: Rikafip on January 14, 2020, 10:54:56 PM
@Rikafip
Thank you for providing the extra info. There was so much plagiarism going on that i completely forgot to check out their team.
With that said, i've added a flag now, in case anyone else wants to support it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=1243

Yep, this project  has "scam" written all over it, sometimes you don't even know were to start in that case and what to sort first. Somehow i think  that this is not last of them, they will try again, with another fake team and another plagiarized content.

Flag supported by the way.


Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: dkbit98 on January 15, 2020, 12:00:16 AM
https://i.imgur.com/2Adw8Wm.jpg
Just look at the terrible sharpy logo they created  ::)

Flag supported.
Some people in bitcointalk forum have perfected their copy/paste skills, and that is not as easy as you may think  :P
I can confirm that they copied stuff from original Digital Gold token



Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: Rikafip on February 19, 2020, 08:05:27 AM
Pyrrhos Gold is back with new announcement thread, and "new" team members, and again they used fake photos. So far they plagiarized whitepaper, used fake team member photos, but somehow they want us to believe that their cryptocurrency is backed by real gold.

Ann https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5226862.0
Archive https://archive.fo/znhaN

Website https://backed-by-gold.com/
Archive https://archive.ph/5gzEj

This is Max Beckman, their Developer
https://i.postimg.cc/ryvJs8ht/max.png

As seen, you can find that picture being used everywhere
https://i.postimg.cc/d1G09jYF/stock.png


Title: Re: Pyrrhos Gold - plagiarized whitepaper!
Post by: morvillz7z on February 19, 2020, 03:59:34 PM
^Thanks for bringing this up.
I checked their previous announcement thread only to find that they've edited (https://archive.ph/wip/u6FmQ) it two and a half weeks ago and moved it to Other > Meta > Bitcoin Wiki in order to hide the flags and ratings raised against them. Time to flag and tag their new account. Damn idiots.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;flag=1390