[ANN] Symmetry - The Safer Cryptocurrency Fund with a Monthly Dividend.

[Beahelm]

This project is indeed very impressive, if all information about the project is true then it's good for a prospective investor.
All the same, I would keep researching more about it, but so far it's a big thumbs up!
Keep it up!

[1714116071]

1714116071

[1714116071]

1714116071

[GrassBite]

ALL - ATTENTION

THIS HAS BEEN VERIFIED TO BE A SCAM.

IT LOOKS VERY LEGITIMATE.  IT IS NOT.

They will not respond to this message.  There is your proof if you want.

MODS - PLEASE DO WHATEVER IS NECESSARY.  I will post the last hour of their Telegram chat here..which they are in and not responding.

Pft:
Telegram of the team is correct?
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28957307#msg28957307
 i  readed a whole article about scam
 but don't know if it is true
 i trust symm
 and i think this article is not true
[9:46:36 AM] Sandro Martins:
All those points deserve a reply:
 
 #219
Conclusion: I did like this ICO at first sight and felt inclined to invest. I did my due diligence and found so many red flags that I won't invest and earmark this ICO as a SCAM, one of the most convincing ones I've seen.

Let me give you a list of red flags that I've built up:
all linkedin team member profiles seem to be rather new, no recommendations present although the got "polished up" quite a bit over the past weeks
names of individuals show nothing when searching the with Google (apart from LinkedIn & their own site). So nobody has a social profile or any other coverage? That's weird for a team that claims so many years of finance & investment experience. The answer I got from Andrew in the Telegram group was: "We are coming from old fashioned, traditional financial institutions, most of us never had or have social profiles, we just don't use them. We avoid SM as much as possible. You can search for any recognized fund manager with German background and you won't find a thing. It's normal. You are welcome to join us in Dallas, TX on Feb 16-18, BTC/ETH Super conference to meet all of us.". Conveniently after round 1 of the ICO closes.
the one time they were supposed to show up, in Dubai (jan 9th 2018, Dubai International Blockchain Summit), but nobody was there. They claimed "we didn't pay on time", really?
if they really are fund managers/investors, they probably have Bloomberg for stock rates etc. Like linkedin, Bloomberg is searchable and no Andrew LEWIN shows up. When a friend asked Andrew about it, he got banned from the Telegram group.
other critical sounds are not welcome: two critical reddit posters got banned from the Telegram channel too
if the team has worked in Zurich (CH) in finances, there is a good chance they had to be registered (like a bankers oath), none of the team members show up: https://zh.chregister.ch/cr-portal/suche/suche.xhtml
website of symmetry itself is registered through a hosting/DNS lookup protecting construction (Domains by proxy), so is fully anonymous - https://www.whois.com/whois/symmetry.fund
if you look at the code of the website images, they don't have person names but e.g. advisor-2.jpg and team-1.jpg. That feels weird, most other sites I checked had more meaningful filenames like andrew_lewin.jpg etc. That is what this guy spotted too: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28390839#msg28390839
I emailed Polaris Investors AG, the company of the advisor "Mike Henkel". Their quick reply was "We were not aware of the fact that apparently people are using our name on Linkedin. This guy seems to be a fake and does not work with us. Honestly, I would not touch an ICO where a guy claims to be an advisor if he uses firm names randomly". And I got a kind remark that they would short SYMM Smiley.
though connections, EPAM's HR department stated there was no Vladimir Savochkin there
their source code in Github is available, but the person who made the first commit (almost all the code) is gone - no account there anymore, just a name: Waqas Khokhar  https://github.com/symmetryfund/symmetry/commits/master
Check on the Cayman Islands chamber of commerce for Symmetry Fund: no such company - http://web.caymanchamber.ky/directory/results.aspx?Keywords=symmetry+fund
I haven't seen a photo of the whole team together, which would make sense if it's just a collection of modified stockphotos. You wouldn't start a 4 million USD business without knowing each other, would you?
A friend talked to the lawyer Mykola on Skype. He is real and does consulting for Symmetry, even got paid for it. However: he never saw any papers and never met anybody in person, just gave advice. So again, nobody has seen Andrew & his team.
The fund meter shows 4000+ ETH collected, although only 900+ ETH show in the address where the ETH is sent to. They claim in their Telegram that the rest came in as BTC from early investors, but that's nowhere to be found.
Check the photo under this medium post: https://medium.com/@irfanmuhammadsyamsularief/investment-with-the-symmetr

Commercial register of canton Zurich
Cantonal company search, Commercial register of canton Zurich
Official commercial register information of the Canton of Zürich
 y-fund-f5abafde425  -> all advisors have been changed. The full COSS team was there, now it's two/three people that can't be found in real life. From COSS I got back: "I am not an advisor of that ICO and I don't have any link to it."
The advisor named Leah Kronshage was removed from the English site. When asked about it on Telegram, Andrew stated: "he is an impersonator". Weird though, if you switch the language of their site to Korean, Leah is still there...
 The team photo would be great, if they are not so shy

[9:51:01 AM] Jim Craddock:
Very interested in Vlad and Andrew's response... as I have a more public platform to take it to
[9:55:00 AM] Stimo McStimo:
+1 I was going to invest yesterday, but these are huge red flags
[9:55:16 AM] Sascha:
same here
[9:55:57 AM] Stimo McStimo:
And they made this telegram channel private yesterday, so no new people can join in
[9:56:03 AM] Pft:
I invested already only 15 ethereum
 i have enough so it doens't care me
[9:56:35 AM] Sascha:
good for you :-)
[9:56:45 AM] Pft:
but we will see what the future brings
[9:56:53 AM] Sascha:
So it is
[9:58:34 AM] Pft:
I life near an advisor https://nl.linkedin.com/in/leah-kronshage-1a95b7152
 so can ask if he know Symm
[9:59:53 AM] Stimo McStimo:
So you know Leah in person?
[10:00:40 AM] Sandro Martins:
A private channel to promote an ICO?
[10:00:57 AM] Stimo McStimo:
They closed it a day or so ago
 Was public
 And I'm wondering whg
 Why
[10:01:20 AM] Sascha:
getting stranger
[10:01:21 AM] Stimo McStimo:
Vlad the admin just said sorry for the inconvenience..
[10:01:31 AM] Sandro Martins:
If anybody is waiting for some other clue...
[10:01:50 AM] Stimo McStimo:
> Vlad
> Will available very soon. Sorry for inconvenience
Here is Vlad's response to my question
[10:01:54 AM] Pft:
Forwarded message:
Sandro Martins [9:46 AM]
All those points deserve a reply:
 
 #219
Conclusion: I did like this ICO at first sight and felt inclined to invest. I did my due diligence and found so many red flags that I won't invest and earmark this ICO as a SCAM, one of the most convincing ones I've seen.

Let me give you a list of red flags that I've built up:
all linkedin team member profiles seem to be rather new, no recommendations present although the got "polished up" quite a bit over the past weeks
names of individuals show nothing when searching the with Google (apart from LinkedIn & their own site). So nobody has a social profile or any other coverage? That's weird for a team that claims so many years of finance & investment experience. The answer I got from Andrew in the Telegram group was: "We are coming from old fashioned, traditional financial institutions, most of us never had or have social profiles, we just don't use them. We avoid SM as much as possible. You can search for any recognized fund manager with German background and you won't find a thing. It's normal. You are welcome to join us in Dallas, TX on Feb 16-18, BTC/ETH Super conference to meet all of us.". Conveniently after round 1 of the ICO closes.
the one time they were supposed to show up, in Dubai (jan 9th 2018, Dubai International Blockchain Summit), but nobody was there. They claimed "we didn't pay on time", really?
if they really are fund managers/investors, they probably have Bloomberg for stock rates etc. Like linkedin, Bloomberg is searchable and no Andrew LEWIN shows up. When a friend asked Andrew about it, he got banned from the Telegram group.
other critical sounds are not welcome: two critical reddit posters got banned from the Telegram channel too
if the team has worked in Zurich (CH) in finances, there is a good chance they had to be registered (like a bankers oath), none of the team members show up: https://zh.chregister.ch/cr-portal/suche/suche.xhtml
website of symmetry itself is registered through a hosting/DNS lookup protecting construction (Domains by proxy), so is fully anonymous - https://www.whois.com/whois/symmetry.fund
if you look at the code of the website images, they don't have person names but e.g. advisor-2.jpg and team-1.jpg. That feels weird, most other sites I checked had more meaningful filenames like andrew_lewin.jpg etc. That is what this guy spotted too: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28390839#msg28390839
I emailed Polaris Investors AG, the company of the advisor "Mike Henkel". Their quick reply was "We were not aware of the fact that apparently people are using our name on Linkedin. This guy seems to be a fake and does not work with us. Honestly, I would not touch an ICO where a guy claims to be an advisor if he uses firm names randomly". And I got a kind remark that they would short SYMM Smiley.
though connections, EPAM's HR department stated there was no Vladimir Savochkin there
their source code in Github is available, but the person who made the first commit (almost all the code) is gone - no account there anymore, just a name: Waqas Khokhar  https://github.com/symmetryfund/symmetry/commits/master
Check on the Cayman Islands chamber of commerce for Symmetry Fund: no such company - http://web.caymanchamber.ky/directory/results.aspx?Keywords=symmetry+fund
I haven't seen a photo of the whole team together, which would make sense if it's just a collection of modified stockphotos. You wouldn't start a 4 million USD business without knowing each other, would you?
A friend talked to the lawyer Mykola on Skype. He is real and does consulting for Symmetry, even got paid for it. However: he never saw any papers and never met anybody in person, just gave advice. So again, nobody has seen Andrew & his team.
The fund meter shows 4000+ ETH collected, although only 900+ ETH show in the address where the ETH is sent to. They claim in their Telegram that the rest came in as BTC from early investors, but that's nowhere to be found.
Check the photo under this medium post: https://medium.com/@irfanmuhammadsyamsularief/investment-with-the-symmetr

Commercial register of canton Zurich
Cantonal company search, Commercial register of canton Zurich
Official commercial register information of the Canton of Zürich
[10:03:37 AM] Sandro Martins:
Not to mention that daily conversion of crypto in fiat sounds weird

[10:03:21 AM] Jim Craddock:
Well, in internet time, I think the Jig is up.  Very disappointing
[10:05:11 AM] Stimo McStimo:
Vlad sees all these messages, but the delay in their response tells me they are very sophisticated scammers
 Vlad was online a min ago

[10:04:53 AM] Jim Craddock:
My best guess is Russian scam.  I noticed their website originally has come russian in the domain momentarily during a redirect once
[10:05:56 AM] Sandro Martins:
I thank admin for creating this channel, and all those participants. Saved me some ETH

[10:05:39 AM] Jim Craddock:
Will never trade now...they didn't make it far enough. so we are hosed
[10:07:12 AM] Stimo McStimo:
No, Andrew is a real person living in the UK
 I mean no, its not a Russian scM
 Scam
 A UK scam rather
 So Andrew is a real person and we have a connection in common
 On linked in
[10:08:23 AM] Sandro Martins:
Perhaps real Andrew never heard about Symmetry... who knows
[10:08:29 AM] Stimo McStimo:
Andrew met my friend at a Conference and gave him his card

[10:07:42 AM] Jim Craddock:
yeah should've done better due diligence on my part...no pictures show when google searched...big red flag...stock photos should show up SOMEWHERE
[10:08:50 AM] Stimo McStimo:
And then sent him a linked in request
 Looks to me like he was building his linked in profile
 And connections
[10:09:16 AM] Pft:
3 Edward St, George Town, Cayman Islands
[10:09:26 AM] Stimo McStimo:
So Andrew is real and he setup symmetey
[10:09:29 AM] Pft:
adress and put money together to send to them
[10:09:32 AM] Stimo McStimo:
Symmetry

[10:08:33 AM] Jim Craddock:
I was about to get my mom invested!  doh!
 and invest more
[10:09:50 AM] Stimo McStimo:
But their goals are not clear
[10:10:08 AM] Sascha:
yeah i was pretty convinced tooo
[10:10:11 AM] Stimo McStimo:
Very sophisticated I should say

[10:09:23 AM] Jim Craddock:
Damn, the google picture search I should've done that earlier
[10:11:06 AM] Sascha:
could have been so good :-)
[10:11:06 AM] Stimo McStimo:
What's with google pic?
 Andrew's also seen our messages!

[10:10:41 AM] Jim Craddock:
if you right click a picture in chrome you can search all the web for it.  It should show up SOMEWHERE if it is a common photo of someone..people tend to reuse photos etc
 especially profile photos
[10:12:18 AM] Stimo McStimo:
Ha!
[10:12:23 AM] Sandro Martins:
Well, ASTRO is at a good entry point these days. And they are legit
[10:12:28 AM] Stimo McStimo:
We cracked them guys
 Hopefully you haven't lost too much
 They're going to close this channel soon I suspect

[10:11:44 AM] Jim Craddock:
I write for seeking alpha... they will make for a good article
[10:13:53 AM] Sascha:
Thank you very much for the warning, you saved me.


[10:14:36 AM] Stimo McStimo:
They didn't do too much PR, that let them continue operate without being noticed by experts

[VoxNumana]

Well I have just been booted from their Telegram group for asking them to show proof that they booked space at the Bitcoin, Ethereum, And Blockchain Super Conference in Dallas, Texas. They told me they 'forgot' to book a booth at the Dubai summit lol

[GrassBite]

Here is my summary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYiSIQEajZs&feature=youtu.be

[Crypto4K]

It's really sad, as there are so many other promising projects out there delivering already...


- ) ICONOMI (with a variety of funds)

-) Greyscale Investment Solutions

- ) Blackmoon Crypto (doesn't have a crypto fund yet)

- ) Global Advisors

- ) Metastable Capital

- ) Polychain

-) Logos Fund

and the best:




www.pecun.io

[btctube]

Seem a scary world in here already. There had been a lot of ICO turned scam already and this is just one. I have send some ETH to multibot ICO too which I was impress because they do have a working product already in beta version but they didn't list the token.

If this SYMM team got it succesfully, they may have to let us wait for nothing. This wouldn't be listed in any exchange too.

[blacktrader]

Twitter
WEEK: 5 21/01 - 27/01
Baш нoмep в spreadsheet : 428
Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/SolnechnyjAlex
ETH Address:0xE659b76B2fd82B921771fFE33408d4F4359bA61B

retwitt:
1- 23/01: https://twitter.com/symmetryfund/status/955439918146142209
2- 23/01: https://twitter.com/symmetryfund/status/955491520295059456
3- 24.01: https://twitter.com/symmetryfund/status/955914793851895813
4- 24.01: https://twitter.com/symmetryfund/status/956164699803938816
5- 26.01: https://twitter.com/symmetryfund/status/956939920525807617
twitts:
1. 27.01: https://twitter.com/SolnechnyjAlex/status/957356690629853184
2. 27.01: https://twitter.com/SolnechnyjAlex/status/957357364449071104

[argha123]

Is this like a Mutual Fund for Crypto ?, where the investors buy NAV volume and paid as per the NAV progress with course of Time.

[TheLazyCryptoInvestor]

Look out... this is a scam!!

I was in close contact (telegram only)  with the team and they offered me a job as community manager ( I do this for other funds as well)  and was about to take it. ( they even paid my salary for the first month the day before it got exposed as scam  from this address  https://etherscan.io/address/0xbe308fb255a5740ff106b00042fe6c0c1d035444   0.5 eth and 3 symm )

I was also starting to investigate this and more ppl in my network did this.  Since the shit hits the fan after  the post from rijnsent  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28390839#msg28390839)  he got deleted and banned. They did this to all the ppl in chat who where critical, noticed that in the week before also. But after his post and ban, many ppl from my network started reposting it...  After a few hrs they stopped responding and banning... few hrs later entire chat channel was deleted

Andrew from symmytry has not responded or even read my messages from to me since jan 25th . Chat channel is deleted since yesterday, but the website is still running and you can still invest. STAY AWAY FROM THERE!!!!!


Regards

Jelle TheLazyCryptoInvestor

Not sure how to report scam tokens here to this forum but this is one for sure!!

[TheLazyCryptoInvestor]

Still wondering how I almost invested in it... this scam took some preparation. Andrew and Vlad seems to know what they were talking about. Also hiring experienced outsiders like me to gain trust. I was amazed withing 3 minutes after they found out who I was... "Do you have experience modding the group ? We are hiring"  and within a hour a deal was made. I was about to start monday, but I do not want to be linked or connected or involved in this company

[JHR1963]

Look out... this is a scam!!

I was in close contact (telegram only)  with the team and they offered me a job as community manager ( I do this for other funds as well)  and was about to take it. ( they even paid my salary for the first month the day before it got exposed as scam  from this address  https://etherscan.io/address/0xbe308fb255a5740ff106b00042fe6c0c1d035444   0.5 eth and 3 symm )

I was also starting to investigate this and more ppl in my network did this.  Since the shit hits the fan after  the post from rijnsent  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28390839#msg28390839)  he got deleted and banned. They did this to all the ppl in chat who where critical, noticed that in the week before also. But after his post and ban, many ppl from my network started reposting it...  After a few hrs they stopped responding and banning... few hrs later entire chat channel was deleted

Andrew from symmytry has not responded or even read my messages from to me since jan 25th . Chat channel is deleted since yesterday, but the website is still running and you can still invest. STAY AWAY FROM THERE!!!!!


Regards

Jelle TheLazyCryptoInvestor

Not sure how to report scam tokens here to this forum but this is one for sure!!

Thank you Jelle and Rijnsent and GrassBite to share this with us.  Saved me a lot of money. Was about to enter large...

[Zabivelli]

Still wondering how I almost invested in it... this scam took some preparation. Andrew and Vlad seems to know what they were talking about. Also hiring experienced outsiders like me to gain trust. I was amazed withing 3 minutes after they found out who I was... "Do you have experience modding the group ? We are hiring"  and within a hour a deal was made. I was about to start monday, but I do not want to be linked or connected or involved in this company

If you knew what this was and agreed to work and get paid to promote this, resulting in more victims..Than you are involved with them, aren't you??

[TheLazyCryptoInvestor]

Still wondering how I almost invested in it... this scam took some preparation. Andrew and Vlad seems to know what they were talking about. Also hiring experienced outsiders like me to gain trust. I was amazed withing 3 minutes after they found out who I was... "Do you have experience modding the group ? We are hiring"  and within a hour a deal was made. I was about to start monday, but I do not want to be linked or connected or involved in this company

If you knew what this was and agreed to work and get paid to promote this, resulting in more victims..Than you are involved with them, aren't you??

If I knew, yes... I did not know. Was looking for a new investment found this, joined chat, read a lot. Start asking questions. At that time it still seems legit. And when they offered me the job last Tuesday it was even more confirmation and trust building for me.  Simultaneous I did continue my digging and ppl in my network as well. Friday after the shit hits the fan. I tried to warn as many as I could even in symmetry telegram channel, not long after that the entire channel was deleted.  My post last night here was the first opportunity I had to post here. Still have no answers back from Andrew.

Pls folks stay out of this ico

[hirokazu]

Look out... this is a scam!!

I was in close contact (telegram only)  with the team and they offered me a job as community manager ( I do this for other funds as well)  and was about to take it. ( they even paid my salary for the first month the day before it got exposed as scam  from this address  https://etherscan.io/address/0xbe308fb255a5740ff106b00042fe6c0c1d035444   0.5 eth and 3 symm )

I was also starting to investigate this and more ppl in my network did this.  Since the shit hits the fan after  the post from rijnsent  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28390839#msg28390839)  he got deleted and banned. They did this to all the ppl in chat who where critical, noticed that in the week before also. But after his post and ban, many ppl from my network started reposting it...  After a few hrs they stopped responding and banning... few hrs later entire chat channel was deleted

Andrew from symmytry has not responded or even read my messages from to me since jan 25th . Chat channel is deleted since yesterday, but the website is still running and you can still invest. STAY AWAY FROM THERE!!!!!


Regards

Jelle TheLazyCryptoInvestor

Not sure how to report scam tokens here to this forum but this is one for sure!!

Thank you Jelle and Rijnsent and GrassBite to share this with us.  Saved me a lot of money. Was about to enter large...

However, they already collect some money with that trick. I hope the number of gullible people will not grow anymore. this is really outrageous, I feel sorry for investor.

[bootlegneurons]

Hi all, are we sure this is a scam and not just FUD? There's a few things I find really weird, i.e.:

• Official website's telegram link now directs to a group called "symmetryfund is a SCAM !!!!!" ... seriously? This makes me think it's a salty community manager who has either hacked or had control of the account and has had a falling out. Scammers are not batsh*t crazy and wouldn't advertise the fact that they're scammers.
• Many of the points listed in the original post seem very nitpicky, i.e. registering a website using an anonymisation service is quite common. And the naming of jpegs? who cares?
• The linked medium article now returns a page saying 'suspended'
• I reached out to the organisers for the upcoming conferences mentioned on their site, and have so far had one reply confirming Vlad Savochkin as a speaker at Bitcoin Super Conference
• The linked business search at http://web.caymanchamber.ky/directory/results.aspx?Keywords=symmetry+fund is for the Chamber of Commerce, and is a local business DIRECTORY. not a REGISTRY. I created a free account on the Cayman Islands General Registry (www.ciregistry.gov.ky), and searched for "SYMM LTD" which is the entity mentioned in Symmetry Fund's Terms of Service (accessible through the website's footer). There is a result, but I can't get full details without paying $40 (someone else is more than welcome to though!)
• Andrew Lewin DOES clearly exist - and he was previously registered under the UK's Financial Services Register (https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_IndividualDetailsPage?id=003b000000LVd4uAAD). However, he is marked as 'Inactive' - but that could just be explained by a geographic relocation

All that in mind though, I do find the total radio silence from Symmetry Fund on their other social media channels a bit disturbing - but perhaps these channels are all under the control of the same malicious actor?

Has anyone else done any further digging? I personally don't feel like there's enough evidence to conclusively call this as a scam either way yet. I feel like most of the original claims made by rjinsent can be refuted (or ignored) as above.

Conclusion: I did like this ICO at first sight and felt inclined to invest. I did my due diligence and found so many red flags that I won't invest and earmark this ICO as a SCAM, one of the most convincing ones I've seen.

Let me give you a list of red flags that I've built up:

• all linkedin team member profiles seem to be rather new, no recommendations present although the got "polished up" quite a bit over the past weeks
• names of individuals show nothing when searching the with Google (apart from LinkedIn & their own site). So nobody has a social profile or any other coverage? That's weird for a team that claims so many years of finance & investment experience. The answer I got from Andrew in the Telegram group was: "We are coming from old fashioned, traditional financial institutions, most of us never had or have social profiles, we just don't use them. We avoid SM as much as possible. You can search for any recognized fund manager with German background and you won't find a thing. It's normal. You are welcome to join us in Dallas, TX on Feb 16-18, BTC/ETH Super conference to meet all of us.". Conveniently after round 1 of the ICO closes.
• the one time they were supposed to show up, in Dubai (jan 9th 2018, Dubai International Blockchain Summit), but nobody was there. They claimed "we didn't pay on time", really?
• if they really are fund managers/investors, they probably have Bloomberg for stock rates etc. Like linkedin, Bloomberg is searchable and no Andrew LEWIN shows up. When a friend asked Andrew about it, he got banned from the Telegram group.
• other critical sounds are not welcome: two critical reddit posters got banned from the Telegram channel too
• if the team has worked in Zurich (CH) in finances, there is a good chance they had to be registered (like a bankers oath), none of the team members show up: https://zh.chregister.ch/cr-portal/suche/suche.xhtml
• website of symmetry itself is registered through a hosting/DNS lookup protecting construction (Domains by proxy), so is fully anonymous - https://www.whois.com/whois/symmetry.fund
• if you look at the code of the website images, they don't have person names but e.g. advisor-2.jpg and team-1.jpg. That feels weird, most other sites I checked had more meaningful filenames like andrew_lewin.jpg etc. That is what this guy spotted too: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28390839#msg28390839
• I emailed Polaris Investors AG, the company of the advisor "Mike Henkel". Their quick reply was "We were not aware of the fact that apparently people are using our name on Linkedin. This guy seems to be a fake and does not work with us. Honestly, I would not touch an ICO where a guy claims to be an advisor if he uses firm names randomly". And I got a kind remark that they would short SYMM .
• though connections, EPAM's HR department stated there was no Vladimir Savochkin there
• their source code in Github is available, but the person who made the first commit (almost all the code) is gone - no account there anymore, just a name: Waqas Khokhar  https://github.com/symmetryfund/symmetry/commits/master
• Check on the Cayman Islands chamber of commerce for Symmetry Fund: no such company - http://web.caymanchamber.ky/directory/results.aspx?Keywords=symmetry+fund
• I haven't seen a photo of the whole team together, which would make sense if it's just a collection of modified stockphotos. You wouldn't start a 4 million USD business without knowing each other, would you?
• A friend talked to the lawyer Mykola on Skype. He is real and does consulting for Symmetry, even got paid for it. However: he never saw any papers and never met anybody in person, just gave advice. So again, nobody has seen Andrew & his team.
• The fund meter shows 4000+ ETH collected, although only 900+ ETH show in the address where the ETH is sent to. They claim in their Telegram that the rest came in as BTC from early investors, but that's nowhere to be found.
• Check the photo under this medium post: https://medium.com/@irfanmuhammadsyamsularief/investment-with-the-symmetry-fund-f5abafde425  -> all advisors have been changed. The full COSS team was there, now it's two/three people that can't be found in real life. From COSS I got back: "I am not an advisor of that ICO and I don't have any link to it."
• The advisor named Leah Kronshage was removed from the English site. When asked about it on Telegram, Andrew stated: "he is an impersonator". Weird though, if you switch the language of their site to Korean, Leah is still there...

How many more red flags do you need?

My thoughts:

• this is a SCAM, set up by a small core group
• nobody has ever seen him/her/them/it in person and people asking questions about that are banned from the Telegram group.
• They really know their business: they show in their website and in the Telegram group quite a bit of knowledge on the crypto world, so are convincing.
• they did hire (and pay) some external parties to make the ICO look more legit, but none of those parties has ever met any of the ICO core team. Examples are Mykola and a guy I talked to that was paid to be a community manager.
• they are getting better as they go, slowly improving their scam game, involving more external people and even paying those external people. That's a good business lesson: you have to spend money to make money.
• They started slow, but as the ICO got picked up by some ICO rating sites and gave them more legitimacy. It's basically only self-confirmation: none of these sites really checked the team members or spoke to anybody in person.

So I'm sorry for the people who gave them their money, you can follow it through their smart contract on the ethereum blockchain:  https://etherscan.io/token/0xb54da0854f41396886eb728e0f8082382281f84a . They will probably kick me from the Telegram channel and try to remove this post, but hope I saved you some ETH.

[Raiku WanGS]

• Official website's telegram link now directs to a group called "symmetryfund is a SCAM !!!!!" ... seriously? This makes me think it's a salty community manager who has either hacked or had control of the account and has had a falling out. Scammers are not batsh*t crazy and wouldn't advertise the fact that they're scammers.

i have nothing to do with Symmetry fund. i took over the Telegram channel to help prevent people from getting scammed.


thier ether account.
https://etherscan.io/address/0xbEadA3257BFf2d41eF6e563190e6624B57eAcc89

look where all the coins get transferred to they go through a few wallets but end up.

https://etherscan.io/address/0xb3aaaae47070264f3595c5032ee94b620a583a39

check the comments against this wallet.

[Monkey_Thinker]

Very promising project in my opinion. I liked it right away because I read the description and what the dev team plans to do in the future. If it goes that way, then we are waiting for a profit project for early investors. And I wanted to know the maximum hardcap of the project?

[Glen Thompson]

Keep up the good work and don't let us down. There are so many fakes coins these days but this is real, just spoke to the admin and they have prospect

[BearuBear]

This project is legit for sure. The team has been doing business for years and the performance is well. All I am concerned is how much fund it can raise.

[rijnsent]

Thanks to bootlegneurons to point out some of the weaker spots in my list of Big Red Flags, but it's still a SCAM. Let's assume for a second you're not part of this scammers team, in that case I'd like to thank you for help me improving my skills to find a next scam.
But let me, for the sake of it, point out some flaws in your counter arguments (I won't put a smiley face everywhere, but hope that the irony here is clear)

• Official telegram -> "symmetryfund is a SCAM". I was kicked out of the channel, so can't confirm this. But what I did hear was that the admins left the group, so no salty community manager, just rats leaving a sinking ship.
• nitpicking jpeg & anonymous website, who cares? -> I do, I've checked out various ICOs and none of them have this. They don't have to have a fully anonymous website because they are not scammers. It's just more red flags that there's something wrong.
• Medium page suspended and can't find an image? -> check out internet archive or google cache, it's still there. Linking to the other flags, my guess is that the scammers control this account.
• Vlad a speaker? A pity they don't mention him on their site: https://www.bitcoinsuperconference.com/speakers/ , I bet you all the SYMMs I have that I will get feedback from that conference that they don't know any Vlad Savochkin.
• You totally got me on the Cayman Island registry vs Chamber of Commerce, I might consider striking it of my list and getting myself a free account next time. But then, you could have sent my this official paperwork too : http://loophole4all.com/?id_i=82395&id_e=63594&company=SYMM+LTD.
• Andrew Lewin does exits... Thanks for the link to that Financial Services Register. Did you however expand the block at the bottom? That Andrew Lewin has worked for e.g. Royal Bank of Canada and Kleinsworth Benson bank. That is a 100% mismatch with the profile that the "Andrew Lewin" of Symmetry has given, it's a different person.

I could add some more flags, like the Ether that's being sent to the smart contact ending up in a known scammers account. And a community manager that was hired, paid and after that fired because of critical noises. But will save myself the trouble and will ask you what you would need to call this a SCAM, what is "enough evidence"?

Hi all, are we sure this is a scam and not just FUD? There's a few things I find really weird, i.e.:

• Official website's telegram link now directs to a group called "symmetryfund is a SCAM !!!!!" ... seriously? This makes me think it's a salty community manager who has either hacked or had control of the account and has had a falling out. Scammers are not batsh*t crazy and wouldn't advertise the fact that they're scammers.
• Many of the points listed in the original post seem very nitpicky, i.e. registering a website using an anonymisation service is quite common. And the naming of jpegs? who cares?
• The linked medium article now returns a page saying 'suspended'
• I reached out to the organisers for the upcoming conferences mentioned on their site, and have so far had one reply confirming Vlad Savochkin as a speaker at Bitcoin Super Conference
• The linked business search at http://web.caymanchamber.ky/directory/results.aspx?Keywords=symmetry+fund is for the Chamber of Commerce, and is a local business DIRECTORY. not a REGISTRY. I created a free account on the Cayman Islands General Registry (www.ciregistry.gov.ky), and searched for "SYMM LTD" which is the entity mentioned in Symmetry Fund's Terms of Service (accessible through the website's footer). There is a result, but I can't get full details without paying $40 (someone else is more than welcome to though!)
• Andrew Lewin DOES clearly exist - and he was previously registered under the UK's Financial Services Register (https://register.fca.org.uk/ShPo_IndividualDetailsPage?id=003b000000LVd4uAAD). However, he is marked as 'Inactive' - but that could just be explained by a geographic relocation

All that in mind though, I do find the total radio silence from Symmetry Fund on their other social media channels a bit disturbing - but perhaps these channels are all under the control of the same malicious actor?

Has anyone else done any further digging? I personally don't feel like there's enough evidence to conclusively call this as a scam either way yet. I feel like most of the original claims made by rjinsent can be refuted (or ignored) as above.

Conclusion: I did like this ICO at first sight and felt inclined to invest. I did my due diligence and found so many red flags that I won't invest and earmark this ICO as a SCAM, one of the most convincing ones I've seen.

Let me give you a list of red flags that I've built up:

• all linkedin team member profiles seem to be rather new, no recommendations present although the got "polished up" quite a bit over the past weeks
• names of individuals show nothing when searching the with Google (apart from LinkedIn & their own site). So nobody has a social profile or any other coverage? That's weird for a team that claims so many years of finance & investment experience. The answer I got from Andrew in the Telegram group was: "We are coming from old fashioned, traditional financial institutions, most of us never had or have social profiles, we just don't use them. We avoid SM as much as possible. You can search for any recognized fund manager with German background and you won't find a thing. It's normal. You are welcome to join us in Dallas, TX on Feb 16-18, BTC/ETH Super conference to meet all of us.". Conveniently after round 1 of the ICO closes.
• the one time they were supposed to show up, in Dubai (jan 9th 2018, Dubai International Blockchain Summit), but nobody was there. They claimed "we didn't pay on time", really?
• if they really are fund managers/investors, they probably have Bloomberg for stock rates etc. Like linkedin, Bloomberg is searchable and no Andrew LEWIN shows up. When a friend asked Andrew about it, he got banned from the Telegram group.
• other critical sounds are not welcome: two critical reddit posters got banned from the Telegram channel too
• if the team has worked in Zurich (CH) in finances, there is a good chance they had to be registered (like a bankers oath), none of the team members show up: https://zh.chregister.ch/cr-portal/suche/suche.xhtml
• website of symmetry itself is registered through a hosting/DNS lookup protecting construction (Domains by proxy), so is fully anonymous - https://www.whois.com/whois/symmetry.fund
• if you look at the code of the website images, they don't have person names but e.g. advisor-2.jpg and team-1.jpg. That feels weird, most other sites I checked had more meaningful filenames like andrew_lewin.jpg etc. That is what this guy spotted too: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2480514.msg28390839#msg28390839
• I emailed Polaris Investors AG, the company of the advisor "Mike Henkel". Their quick reply was "We were not aware of the fact that apparently people are using our name on Linkedin. This guy seems to be a fake and does not work with us. Honestly, I would not touch an ICO where a guy claims to be an advisor if he uses firm names randomly". And I got a kind remark that they would short SYMM .
• though connections, EPAM's HR department stated there was no Vladimir Savochkin there
• their source code in Github is available, but the person who made the first commit (almost all the code) is gone - no account there anymore, just a name: Waqas Khokhar  https://github.com/symmetryfund/symmetry/commits/master
• Check on the Cayman Islands chamber of commerce for Symmetry Fund: no such company - http://web.caymanchamber.ky/directory/results.aspx?Keywords=symmetry+fund
• I haven't seen a photo of the whole team together, which would make sense if it's just a collection of modified stockphotos. You wouldn't start a 4 million USD business without knowing each other, would you?
• A friend talked to the lawyer Mykola on Skype. He is real and does consulting for Symmetry, even got paid for it. However: he never saw any papers and never met anybody in person, just gave advice. So again, nobody has seen Andrew & his team.
• The fund meter shows 4000+ ETH collected, although only 900+ ETH show in the address where the ETH is sent to. They claim in their Telegram that the rest came in as BTC from early investors, but that's nowhere to be found.
• Check the photo under this medium post: https://medium.com/@irfanmuhammadsyamsularief/investment-with-the-symmetry-fund-f5abafde425  -> all advisors have been changed. The full COSS team was there, now it's two/three people that can't be found in real life. From COSS I got back: "I am not an advisor of that ICO and I don't have any link to it."
• The advisor named Leah Kronshage was removed from the English site. When asked about it on Telegram, Andrew stated: "he is an impersonator". Weird though, if you switch the language of their site to Korean, Leah is still there...

How many more red flags do you need?

My thoughts:

• this is a SCAM, set up by a small core group
• nobody has ever seen him/her/them/it in person and people asking questions about that are banned from the Telegram group.
• They really know their business: they show in their website and in the Telegram group quite a bit of knowledge on the crypto world, so are convincing.
• they did hire (and pay) some external parties to make the ICO look more legit, but none of those parties has ever met any of the ICO core team. Examples are Mykola and a guy I talked to that was paid to be a community manager.
• they are getting better as they go, slowly improving their scam game, involving more external people and even paying those external people. That's a good business lesson: you have to spend money to make money.
• They started slow, but as the ICO got picked up by some ICO rating sites and gave them more legitimacy. It's basically only self-confirmation: none of these sites really checked the team members or spoke to anybody in person.

So I'm sorry for the people who gave them their money, you can follow it through their smart contract on the ethereum blockchain:  https://etherscan.io/token/0xb54da0854f41396886eb728e0f8082382281f84a . They will probably kick me from the Telegram channel and try to remove this post, but hope I saved you some ETH.