That's virus as in contagious and dangerous scamming methods, not as in malware on your hard disk.
The Onecoin model of bullshit "cryptocurrency" married to a hard sell MLM pyramid is attracting several copycats, Leocoin, Capricoin, Swisscoin and Swiscoin amongst many others.
These have notional products, for example "Education Packages" which are neccessary purchases to become involved in the MLM pyramid, and receive commissions based on the number of people you recruit into the scheme after you.
This type of marketing has been around for years, but the crypto angle which is now being exploited involves a centrally administered "coin" being produced by the scammers and hyped to be "The Bitcoin Killer" or other such nonsense. These coins invariably can only be traded in a scheme back office, or on a rigidly controlled basis (usually huge pre-mine) on shit exchanges.
Gullible real "investors" soon realise they are locked into the scheme and all they have bought is promises of Da Moon from chronic MLM promoters like J Ryan Conley and the Onecoin Mafia.
The latest in this shower of shit is DAScoin, operated by Coinleaders, a Singapore/Dubai/Hong Kong based collection of MLM veterans.
My good friend Oz at
BehindMLM.com has posted an accurate review of this scheme, of which I quote an edited version below
The Coin Leaders website states that the company is operated by CL Singapore Pte. Ltd., which is based in Singapore.
CL Singapore is wholly owned by Coin Leadership Limited, based in Dubai.
John Pretto (nice teeth) is identified as Chairman of Coin Leaders.
John Pretto is an accomplished, innovative and entrepreneurial technologist with over 20 years of senior management experience in information technology, marketing and operations.
Past positions include serving as Chief Technology Officer for R66T (enterprise Wi-Fi), Chief Operating Officer for ComF5 (formerly DigitalFX – digital media marketing platform), CTO and Co-founder of HelloNetwork (streaming media technology), and VP of Technology for SmartConnect (video surveillance for gaming).
On the MLM side of things John Pretto was actively promoting the OneCoin Ponzi scheme last year. Before OneCoin Pretto was promoting Nuverus (nutrition). Pretto appears to have gotten involved in OneCoin in early to mid 2015.
Coin Leaders has no retailable products or services, with affiliates only able to market Coin Leaders affiliate membership itself.
Coin Leaders affiliates invest up to €25,000 in DasCoin, a “hybrid cryptocurrency” run by Hong Kong based DasCoin Limited, in exchange for their investment, Coin Leaders affiliates receive a “software license”.
These software licenses makes it easy for anyone to receive cryptocurrency – directly from the source.
There’s no need to buy coins on a currency exchange, or get involved with the complexities and hassles of a cryptocurrency “mining” process.
Instead, CoinLeader software enables you to help build the distributed network (on which DasCoin operates) and receive DasCoins in return.
Everything is done for you!
The more funds invested into software licenses, the higher the assigned value to DasCoin.
Through their software "license", Coin Leaders affiliates receive DasCoins via “cycles”.
As an incentive for providing Cycles to the network, each licensee is rewarded with an amount of DasCoin calibrated to the level of the licensee’s contribution.
In a nutshell, the more a Coin Leaders affiliate invests the more DasCoin they receive.
Standard – invest €100 EUR and receive 1265 cycles and 1 upgrade
Manager – invest €500 EUR and receive 6325 cycles and 1 upgrade
Pro – invest €2000 EUR and receive 27,600 cycles and 1 upgrade
Executive – invest €5000 EUR and receive 74,750 cycles and 2 upgrades
President – invest €25,000 EUR and receive 373,750 cycles and 3 upgrades
An upgrade is triggered when the rate of cycles converted into DasCoins drops below 50% efficiency (from a starting point of 100 efficiency).
When an upgrade is triggered Coin Leaders affiliate cycles that have not yet been converted into DasCoins are doubled.
Coin Leaders affiliate membership is tied to an initial investment of between €100 and €25,000 EUR.
Coin Leaders is pretty much John Pretto’s attempt at the OneCoin Ponzi business model.
Affiliates invest in “cycles” (OneCoin tokens), which are converted into DasCoin (OneCoins), which are assigned an arbitrary value by DasCoin, a centralized authority.
DasCoin itself is not publicly tradeable and can only be acquired through Coin Leaders investment.
The Coin Leaders website identifies the CEO of DasCoin Limited as Michael Mathias, surprise surprise, Mathias is/was also a OneCoin affiliate.
Coin Leaders and DasCoin present the usual comparisons to legitimate cryptocurrencies and crap about external use of the coin through a merchant network.
The reality however is that Coin Leaders and DasCoin offer up nothing more than a Ponzi pyramid hybrid.
SOP means that purchase at the most expensive entry point is heavily encouraged by impossible maths
Our premiere license … provides an unparalleled combination of benefits and yields rewards that are a 10x magnitude greater than even the Executive License!
The Ponzi element of Coin Leaders is the investment of funds which are converted into DasCoins. The value of DasCoin is assigned by DasCoin Limited, the company running the point-generation script that spits out DasCoins.
The value of DasCoins is pegged to nothing more than the rate of investment from Coin Leaders affiliates.
Affiliates cash DasCoins through Coin Leaders, who use newly invested funds to pay off existing investors.
Albeit convoluted in an attempt to pose as a legitimate cryptocurrency, this is nonetheless the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
Coin Leaders’ pyramid layer is found in its referral commissions, wherein affiliates are paid to recruit new affiliate investors.
Referral commissions are paid out of funds invested by newly recruited affiliates.
As with all Ponzi schemes, once recruitment of new affiliate investors dries up Coin Leaders will collapse.
Why should I waste time and effort writing about this crap, it's not "real" crypto? I hear you ask.
Very true, but that's why I think it's important to distance genuine efforts at an alternative financial system based on cryptocurrency, from the Old World MLM scammers using this "New Opportunity" to rip people off.
Also some say, "You're giving them publicity."
Possibly true, but hits for these scam analyses on BCT usually hit page one on Google searches....
Also importantly in my view, shit sticks.
Every time someone gets ripped off by something thought to be in the cryptosphere, some know nothing regulator or authority will get it into their head that "These things must be controlled/outlawed" and they start with the most visible, Bitcoin.
