"Better than bitcoin" altcoin sellers arrested for stealing $340 million

[manfred]

Makes me wonder how many other scams/ponzis are still running out there and how much money they have. Your thoughts?

it worth nothing that in 2013 after the doge peak the altcoin section was full of malicious devs, who were running their scam-fest, consisting of many alts, like aurora/blackcoin /maxcoin/stockcoin(the first one) ecc....,

i was there for every one, and i can tells you that with the first three they have surpassed by a long shot the 340M of this news..

actually i think that with aurora only, they have scammed a monstrous amount(i remember that coin surpassed litecoin in value, when litecoin was worth about 300M+)

nowadays there are still scam pos coins with bad/fake distribution and other crap like that

Whoah, slow down. There is a lot of scam activity including devs, but how do you justify calling the first three you mention scams? (I'm not familiar with the fourth). It's possible I've missed some important news, but I do try to pay attention so I'm surprised if I missed anything major.

1. Auroracoin was an ambitious effort by pretty much one lone dev, which failed for lack of support/infrastructure/software development that would realistically have been needed for it to be a success in its intention of providing Iceland a cryptocurrency. But despite a lot of hollering about it being a scam, I never saw a whiff of evidence to justify the accusations and it looks like the airdrop took place as intended. (It's all the hasty country-coins that followed it that would be more worthy of such scrutiny.)

2. Blackcoin - ambitious marketing and plans, and in-fighting among the devs, and I've seen accusations of whales attempting to manipulate it. But none of that justifies calling the coin itself a scam or calling the devs scammers.

3. Maxcoin - isn't this the Max Keiser coin? So how does that make it a scam? I've paid less attention to it, but again, how do you justify calling it a scam?

Only Auroracoin topped $100 million in market cap IIRC (with it hitting $1 Billion), so how can you claim each of these coins was somehow involved in >$340 million scams? Granted there is a lot of trouble in the alts, but let's not be wildly inaccurate in describing the issues.

Arguably the first scam coin was Coinhunders Solidcoin
Maxcoin is a pump and dump
Blackcoin is a fool trying to find a bigger fool scenario, the only way to get some is to buy it from the preminers
Auroracoin https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=877108.0

Scams in cryptoworld seem endless

[Hazir]

To be honest I find it really fine and well deserved that people lost money on that Utoken coin. I feel that nothing will make people who likes to invest in shitcoins realise that they are idiots better than lost money.
I just wonder how good of a  marketing genius was creator of said coin to con so many people. It is sad that people after so many altcoins scams and false promises, are willing to invest in yet another dubious project.
Same goes with Ponzi, pyramid schemes and HYIPs...

[pedrog]

TBH I think these guys who played into the scheme should lose their money as a lesson to what happens when you give your trust away to people who don't deserve it.  But I'm just hardcore like that.

So, when someone is victim of a crime it's their fault and they should be punished for being scammed?

I already saw some similar schemes being discussed in this forum, Onecoin comes to mind.

They allowed themselves to be scammed; it's like leaving all your doors and windows open on your car with the keys in the ignition and then complaining someone took it.  Sometimes it can't be helped, but bad business practices are not one of those cases.  The schemers did not steal this money, it was given to them.

Even if you let your car like that and someone stole it you're still the victim and you didn't deserve that.

You should not and can not blame the victim.

[b!z]

TBH I think these guys who played into the scheme should lose their money as a lesson to what happens when you give your trust away to people who don't deserve it.  But I'm just hardcore like that.

So, when someone is victim of a crime it's their fault and they should be punished for being scammed?

I already saw some similar schemes being discussed in this forum, Onecoin comes to mind.

They allowed themselves to be scammed; it's like leaving all your doors and windows open on your car with the keys in the ignition and then complaining someone took it.  Sometimes it can't be helped, but bad business practices are not one of those cases.  The schemers did not steal this money, it was given to them.

Even if you let your car like that and someone stole it you're still the victim and you didn't deserve that.

You should not and can not blame the victim.

Just saw this, but you're right.

The victim is not wrong. The criminal is.

That is why we have a justice system - which despite any flaws - exists to bring justice to criminals who wrong others.

[Synister]

Wah wah, ponzi scheme again. If this continues, people will be afraid to invest because consider the investment world is a fraud.

[bryant.coleman]

A few people in Thailand invested a whooping $340 million in some shitcoin, and we are having difficulty in attracting any interest to Bitcoin recently. This is despite the fact that Bitcoin is the most established crypto, and has been around for more than 6 years. 

[Amph]

Makes me wonder how many other scams/ponzis are still running out there and how much money they have. Your thoughts?

it worth nothing that in 2013 after the doge peak the altcoin section was full of malicious devs, who were running their scam-fest, consisting of many alts, like aurora/blackcoin /maxcoin/stockcoin(the first one) ecc....,

i was there for every one, and i can tells you that with the first three they have surpassed by a long shot the 340M of this news..

actually i think that with aurora only, they have scammed a monstrous amount(i remember that coin surpassed litecoin in value, when litecoin was worth about 300M+)

nowadays there are still scam pos coins with bad/fake distribution and other crap like that

Whoah, slow down. There is a lot of scam activity including devs, but how do you justify calling the first three you mention scams? (I'm not familiar with the fourth). It's possible I've missed some important news, but I do try to pay attention so I'm surprised if I missed anything major.

1. Auroracoin was an ambitious effort by pretty much one lone dev, which failed for lack of support/infrastructure/software development that would realistically have been needed for it to be a success in its intention of providing Iceland a cryptocurrency. But despite a lot of hollering about it being a scam, I never saw a whiff of evidence to justify the accusations and it looks like the airdrop took place as intended. (It's all the hasty country-coins that followed it that would be more worthy of such scrutiny.)

2. Blackcoin - ambitious marketing and plans, and in-fighting among the devs, and I've seen accusations of whales attempting to manipulate it. But none of that justifies calling the coin itself a scam or calling the devs scammers.

3. Maxcoin - isn't this the Max Keiser coin? So how does that make it a scam? I've paid less attention to it, but again, how do you justify calling it a scam?

Only Auroracoin topped $100 million in market cap IIRC (with it hitting $1 Billion), so how can you claim each of these coins was somehow involved in >$340 million scams? Granted there is a lot of trouble in the alts, but let's not be wildly inaccurate in describing the issues.

auroracoin was being heavy manipulated with the funds they rised for the promising id for they citizens

blackcoin, dead after a high pump

maxcoin was  launched in atrocious way, lead to instamine it like no tomorrow

i know people that had at least 1000-5k aurora coin, and each reached 0.16 btc, now do the math, you end up with 500k for every one of those guys(you just need 70-100 of those guy to surpass 340M), not to mention that the funds(50% premined of 21M) was dumped at the end or at least a good portion of it, the funds alone was worth  about 2M bitcoin(yeah 2M bitcoin you read it right)

blackcoin again was heavily instamined(that era was an instamine fest i remember it clearly)


just take a look at their main thread, plenty of people reporting those as a scam(maybe blackcoin a bit less than the others)

[osmotic]

What kind of sentence can the Utoken scammers expect if found guilty? Do they have the death penalty in Thailand?

[Rampton]

TBH I think these guys who played into the scheme should lose their money as a lesson to what happens when you give your trust away to people who don't deserve it.  But I'm just hardcore like that.

You don't sympathize?

I do, everyone makes mistakes, but a part of making mistakes is experiencing the effect of those mistakes; if they get their money back then the learning experience is lost and they'll wind up making the same mistake with the belief that they'll get their money back again.  This is what allows ponzis and pyramids to occur at all: there's no more risk involved, or so they believe, until one of these schemers winds up succeeding with a lot more cash than he would've if everyone knew to avoid such schemes in the first place and to only deal with reputable businesses.  Of course, the schemers do their best to hide that they're a scheme, but still, there's signs.

It's always greed that makes people drop their guard and thrown their money at things if they believe they can earn a quick profit. It's how scams work and why they're so popular because unfortunately humans are inherently greedy.

Makes me wonder how many other scams/ponzis are still running out there and how much money they have. Your thoughts?

it worth nothing that in 2013 after the doge peak the altcoin section was full of malicious devs, who were running their scam-fest, consisting of many alts, like aurora/blackcoin /maxcoin/stockcoin(the first one) ecc....,

i was there for every one, and i can tells you that with the first three they have surpassed by a long shot the 340M of this news..

actually i think that with aurora only, they have scammed a monstrous amount(i remember that coin surpassed litecoin in value, when litecoin was worth about 300M+)

nowadays there are still scam pos coins with bad/fake distribution and other crap like that

99% of them are just pump and dumps made entirely to make money for their devs. I'm surprised alt coins are even still going to be honest but they have slowed down a lot. People just need to avoid them entirely and hopefully they'll die off eventually.

[GTO911]

Looks like somebody's friend lost some money - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1016230.0

There is still another major scam going on in the altworld - Darkcoin/Dash ( Heavily instamined stuff) with ponzi like nodes locking the supply up and artificially inflating the price

Be safe people, a little research before investing can save your money

[PoS]

Looks like somebody's friend lost some money - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1016230.0

There is still another major scam going on in the altworld - Darkcoin/Dash ( Heavily instamined stuff) with ponzi like nodes locking the supply up and artificially inflating the price

Be safe people, a little research before investing can save your money

as always, after they have lost everything the crying starts
the dash trash is programmed to have fatal end, only unknown at this stage is when it will happen
like utoken guys think they can get out in time, lol

[ashour]

Wah wah, ponzi scheme again. If this continues, people will be afraid to invest because consider the investment world is a fraud.

More regulations should be made to prevent scams and ponzi schemes in the bitcoin field. Too many people have lost thousands of bitcoin on these types of scams. I hope that governments will implement heavier penalties for running scams like these. $340 million is a HUGE amount and there are probably many other bitcoin scam running right now. Be smart people, think twice when you invest in shady comapnies/services.

[nutildah]

The more scams like this happening worldwide the more likely the uninformed regular guy will see "crypto currency" and mentally replace it with the word "scam".

Its already happened. Pretty much everybody who is not posting on this board thinks cryptocurrency is useless and/or stupid, if not an outright scam.

[pedrog]

A few people in Thailand invested a whooping $340 million in some shitcoin, and we are having difficulty in attracting any interest to Bitcoin recently. This is despite the fact that Bitcoin is the most established crypto, and has been around for more than 6 years. 

That number may be a bit inflated like when Mycoin was busted, the first number that popped out was something like 400 million dollars, later articles point to a much lower number, around $10 million.

[lucasjkr]

TBH I think these guys who played into the scheme should lose their money as a lesson to what happens when you give your trust away to people who don't deserve it.  But I'm just hardcore like that.

You don't sympathize?

I do, everyone makes mistakes, but a part of making mistakes is experiencing the effect of those mistakes; if they get their money back then the learning experience is lost and they'll wind up making the same mistake with the belief that they'll get their money back again.  This is what allows ponzis and pyramids to occur at all: there's no more risk involved, or so they believe, until one of these schemers winds up succeeding with a lot more cash than he would've if everyone knew to avoid such schemes in the first place and to only deal with reputable businesses.  Of course, the schemers do their best to hide that they're a scheme, but still, there's signs.

Losing sizable amounts of money is a traumatic experience, even if it's ultimately recovered. People don't just go "well, I lost $10k but since I got it back, let me throw it into the next shady investment"

So no, I disagree.

The PT Barnum "there's a sucker born every minute", if that's his quote, rings true. The people who get burned, again, even if they ultimately get their money back, aren't the ones piling into the next scam, but rather its a new generation that's also blinded by greed.

People are suckers, generally. Which, I think, is why we unfortunately need laws to protect them from the most predatory members of society. Probably won't go over well in this crowd, but it's still my opinion.

[afriezalie]

I think we must beware of new altcoin and premine coin. There are many scam coin out of there, so be carefull when you want to invest some money to a new altcoin or premine coin.

[Agestorzrxx]

Wow, they are must be genius, it's should be the biggest scam in the history of crypcurrence.

[Kaneki]

things like this would not be endless, if one group were arrested will appear two or more groups of similar

[odolvlobo]

Wow, they are must be genius, it's should be the biggest scam in the history of crypcurrence.

Utoken is not a cryptocurrency.

[Hazir]

Wow, they are must be genius, it's should be the biggest scam in the history of crypcurrence.

Utoken is not a cryptocurrency.

This site: http://whatisutoken.com/warning-ufun-utoken-scam/ - apparently this is Utoken official site, and I warn you! There are almost hundred trackers integrated in (more than I ever seen on 1 page!)That page reeks of scam.

After reading this: UToken is a name of a new digital token. You can use UToken to purchase products at UBTmall.com, safe trading in UToken market and at any merchants that accept UToken. In order to use UToken you need to be a member of UFUN Club. You are welcome to join our team...

I am amazed how exactly people were so stupid to fell for this kind of fat scam?