This is going to be a long post, but the information contained within is of great importance to the cryptocurrency community.
My name is Rob, and I'm the Founder of ICO Alert, a comprehensive list of all active and upcoming cryptocurrency Initial Coin Offerings.
You may know me from my posts about the launch of ICO Alert, or about that time someone accidentally sent 32 ETH to the ICO Alert donation address.
We recently launched an ICO Report feature that provides in-depth analysis of upcoming ICOs so that you can determine which are worth investing in. During our analysis of TaaS, a tokenized closed-end fund, we stumbled upon some shocking connections. We found that many of the TaaS team members are directly linked to Bitup, a suspected ponzi scheme. In addition, we found huge holes in the cryptographic audit TaaS plans to employ that could jeopardize the sustainability and solvency of the entire fund.
We usually charge a small fee (0.2 ETH / $10) for our reports, but decided that we cannot in good conscience keep the most shocking revelations from the TaaS Report behind a paywall. We believe it is our obligation to the community to distribute this information since the entire TaaS fund may be a scam. You can still purchase the 32 page detailed report here if you'd like, but many of the main revelations are posted below:
The TaaS team and their links to Bitup, a High Yield Investment Platform (aka Ponzi Scheme)
Our research has identified deep connections between the four founding members of the TaaS project — Ruslan Gavrilyuk, Konstantin Pysarenko, Maksym Muratov, and Dimitri Chupryna — and the #bitup investment platform. Several aspects of the Bitup platform resemble strongly characteristics and activities of High Yield Investment Platforms, more commonly known Ponzi Schemes. Bitup advertises fixed daily returns that are not dependent on market or investment performance; users are also offered a percentage of the total investment deposited into the fund by new users they refer. These are the typical characteristics of a ponzi scheme.
Individuals who have been involved in the cryptocurrency space for any meaningful duration will quickly identify the Bitup platform as one of many HYIP (High Yield Investment Programs) Ponzi Schemes developed to defraud new entrants into unregulated markets.Konstantin Pysarenko
Konstantin Pysarenko, the Vice President of the TaaS project, lists experience in founding ‘several startups around the world in food manufacturing, geological oil and gas surveying, and international aviation sales’. Our research struggled to verify these claims as only previously discussed Geo–Earth Resources and Bitup were listed on Mr. Pysarenko’s Linkedin page; deeper inquiry, however, did yield some further information regarding Mr. Pysarenko’s previous work experience.
According to both Mr. Pysarenko’s profile on the TaaS Executive Team and Linkedin page, Konstaintin graduated from the University of Buckingham in 2011 with a degree in Entrepreneurship. Leveraging this information, our research uncovered two profiles of Mr. Pysarenko that appear to align with his given educational timeline and stated work experience5, both written in the first person (indicating Mr. Pysarenko himself prepared the profiles) — one while studying at the University of Buckingham, the other subsequent to the completion of his studies.
Here Mr. Pysarenko indicates that his experience includes publishing, perishable import/export, printing services, cigarette manufacture, and some involvement with aviation sales via his father’s business. Food manufacturing, as stated in Konstantin’s TaaS bio, appears to consist of flour exports and tea imports to and from Africa; no mention is made of experience in geological oil and gas surveying, and international aviation sales appear to be based on involvement with Mr. Pysarenko’s family business. No verifiable indication is given that any of these positions were held at any point in the past or currently in the capacity of a founder, and in the case of aviation sales we believe there is a strong indication that Mr. Pysarenko was explicitly not a founder in any capacity.
Ruslan Gavrilyuk
Mr. Gavrilyuk’s bio on the TaaS Executive Team indicates experience ‘found- ing and managing projects in geosciences, mobile money solutions, oil and gas operations, precious metal mining, sports and fashion’. Our research has been unable to verify any of these assertions; Mr. Gavrilyuk’s LinkedIn page indicates (excluding TaaS) only founding involvement with Geo–Earth Resources and Bitup that are not indicated on either organization’s website or anywhere else. We find the total lack of verifiable connections between any of Mr. Gavrilyuk’s stated experience or credentials to be one the most alarming revelations uncovered from our research.
Bitup Financial Analysis
In July 2016 Bitup began publishing reports outlining their portfolio alloca- tions, trading activities, and general analysis of the cryptocurrency space. These documents list the coins on Bitup traded on the Poloniex market, and some (not all) give the opening and closing dates of particular trades. Documents also list the total monthly portfolio allocation for each coin traded.
Our researchers analyzed the daily volume in BTC for those coins on trades where entry or exit dates are provided and identified those dates on which volume was so low that calculations for the total value of the portfolio allocation for a particular coin could be calculated by generously assuming the full 24 hour daily volume17 represented only the trade conducted by Bitup. This calculation does not give an accurate estimate of the actual AUM of the Bitup trading portfolio, but it does enable us to understand (assuming the portfolio allocation statistics are correct) the maximum possible value of the portfolio on a given date. Deeper analysis of the Bitup Financial statements can be found in the full report under Appendix B: Bitup Financial Analysis.
This analysis indicates that as late October 9th, 2016, Bitup had no more than $60,000 AUM across their entire trading portfolio. In particular, a trade opened by Bitup traders on Nautiliscoin (NAUT) on October 9th accounted for 20% of the total portfolio allocation for the month of October. Volume on Poloniex for the entire 24 hour period of October 9th was 18.82 BTC, and the Bitcoin closing price was $614.62. Attributing all trading volume for the 24 hours of October 9th to Bitup (a wildly generous assumption), the total daily volume USD equivalent comes to $11,567.15. If this value represents 20% of the Bitup trading portfolio, the total value of the portfolio can be calculated at $57,835.74. Again, this uses a nearly impossible assumption of attributing all of the day’s volume to one trade, so the true AUM is very likely substantially less than what has been calculated here.
If the four founding members of the TaaS platform are as deeply involved with the development and operation of the Bitup platform as our research suggests, at the very least questions are raised about the ability of the Bitup, and therefore TaaS, trading team to manage investments and trading strategies involving 1,000 times the AUM they managed at Bitup, as they will be at TaaS. More broadly, any one team member’s involvement with this type of cryptocur- rency HYIP Ponzi scheme should be cause for concern. With four co–founders involved, it is difficult to deny at very least the appearance that TaaS is an extension or evolution of the Bitup project, with remarkably higher AUM and the substantial investment management challenges that entails. Risks of slippage on trades (when acquiring large positions rapidly drive up the price of the asset, limiting potential profitability) and a simple lack of liquidity sufficient to exit positions at profitable prices represent just a few of those challenges.
Trading Methodology & Cryptographic Audit
Our analysis revealed several inconsistencies and very few indications that the author of the TaaS white paper or the TaaS team at large have an understanding of the challenges associated with successfully investing millions of dollars of AUM.Our analysis leads us to believe that the Cryptographic Audit technology be- ing developed by TaaS is being leveraged to obfuscate and deflect questions regarding the true nature of the TaaS trading methodology, while also representing a grave risk to the profitability of the fund. Nevertheless, we believe the Cryptographic Audit technology is the only software actually in development by the TaaS team and represents the only value investors can realistically expect to gain from the TaaS project.
The Cryptographic Audit section of the TaaS whitepaper very strongly appears to have been prepared by a different individual than the rest of the document; the formatting is substantially improved, the charts and diagrams are filled with information (in contrast to the glaring lack of information in the ‘Trading Methodology’ section), the English grammar and vocabulary are substantially improved, and the use of footnotes is liberal and meaningful.
We believe the proposed Auditable Exchange Accounts development and implementation represent extraordinary risks to the success of the TaaS trading methodology and the project as a whole. A system that reveals to anyone, at any time, the specific trading actions being performed by any investor or fund with a substantially large portfolio is nothing short of an invitation for every enterprising individual investor, other trading outfits,experienced algorithmic trader, or youngster with a Poloniex bot and copious free time to create trading strategies developed exclusively to siphon money from the TaaS fund as effectively as can possibly be devised. The risks of front running predicted positions, pumps and dumps during accumulation, or any number of other actions competing traders can use to negatively impact the TaaS methodology (whatever it turns out to be) are dangerously and shockingly amplified if every detail of every trade is made available in the way being described in the Auditable Exchange Accounts implementation. Leaving aside any other improprieties identified through our research, this oversight alone indicates to our analysis a risk so great to invested capital and the project as a whole that we could never in good conscious recommend purchasing TaaS tokens or becoming involved with the TaaS project in any capacity.
Closing
While this is obviously a tremendous amount of information to process and digest, there is a significant amount of information not included here, but included in the full report, that further substantiates these claims and also links the TaaS team members to a mysterious Geo-Earth Resources based in Lagos, Nigeria.
The implications of this report are shocking, and one that we do not take lightly. We have completed this report as quickly as possible due to the severity of the matter, and have decided to release this significant portion of the report to the community, as we believe we have an obligation to do so.
Relevant Links:
https://www.icoalert.com/https://www.icoalert.com/special-ico-alert-report-taasSources:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruslan-gavrilyuk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/konstantin-pysarenko-b1a40b51/http://geo-earth.biz/index.htmlhttps://bitup.io/https://www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/ia_virtualcurrencies.pdfhttps://bitup.io/faqhttps://bitup.io/termshttps://www.linkedin.com/in/nixoid/https://www.linkedin.com/in/andriydubetsky/http://idcee.org/p/andriy-dubetsky/http://en.pcg-conference.com.ua/speakers/view/65/
