ASURA COIN / ASURACOIN.IO IS A SCAM [Analysis inside]

[canyoncry]

I posted my analyisis of https://asuracoin.io/ in their ico's topic but i was ignored because the users that post there are bought/stolen profile or bounty hunter and obviously not interested in the project consistency in anyway.

So i'll post my review here. Hope it can be useful for the community.

April 28, 2018 - From my post https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3290541.msg35773011#msg35773011

When Gaming meet blockchain is always good to hear but there are too many Red flag in this ICO so JUST BE CAREFUL PUTTING MONEY IN IT!

I am a gamer and a blockchain believer and because of this i got scammed in the world of battles ico (https://coinidol.com/scan-for-scam-keep-money-safe-investing-in-ico/) fortunately for a very low amount, after that i've studied very hard to improve my knowledge about ICO investment and i can assure that there are too many tasks not clear in this project.
I'm listing some of this to help the community to not lose money:

- CEO and COO have a linkedin profile that seems opened yesterday and they are "confirming skill" each other.

- Company's linkedin profile have just 3 member https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrentCompany=%5B%2213691848%22%5D
CEO, COO and a unknown "linkedin member"

- NO Linkedin for other team memeber and advisory board, the photos in these boards on their website seems taken from the same "source" (there a so many sites that sell o are a free source of close-up photos), we cannot verify if the team already exist or not.

- No bounty manager, no social media manager infact all social interations seems only powerd by the bounty program user and not managed.

- Telegram channel have 8k user and all of them are bounty hunter, same of twitter. You can see the comments and interaction are just like bot, people in these social group just ask for bounty program info but not seems interested in the project development. The timeframe of messages are to long for a 8k ACTIVE telegram group.
You can see that the user and follower are not genuine because they opened first the bounty program for growing social account (25/02/18) and after that they announced the ICO (24/04/2018)

- The claim to be powered by twitch and other big companies, but that's not true at all.

- No lawyer in the team board, how can you think to open a company and be compliance with regulation?

- No multilanguage whitepaper

- No MVP (minimum valuable product), how can you show us if you are developing or not? Are you asking for 12M with no company organization, no product, no preparation at all? Just like "give us some money and then will start"?

- No github for the token. ICO is starting in less than 1 month e no token is created, give us some proof.

- From whitepaper "(e) You agree and acknowledge that ASA tokens do not constitute securities in any form in any jurisdiction;"
They claim that their company is opened in New Zealand, and why it seems that they don't know that in New Zealand ALL ICO token are considered securities. From which else whitepaper do you copied terms of agreement and disclaimer? lol

- Is claimed that from the 1st 2018 quarter will be available the betting platform, but without a complete platform how regulators can verify it and give you gambling license? However they will not give you any gambling license because in NZ your business proposal is prohibited!!! and all investor can verify directly from this NZ government link: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Services-Casino-and-Non-Casino-Gaming-Prohibited-Gambling?OpenDocument#one

So here's why people you should avoid this and put your money in other projects. Just think twice before invest in it!

P.S. I'am a member for more than two year but i've created an other account because the last time i've unmasked a scam ICO i was flooded in pm mailbox from the scammer.

[AsuraCoin]

I'll just copy/paste what I answered you in our ANN thread here. Hopefully shed some light for you.



Good points, it's always good to be weary of ICOs. I hope I can answer some of your questions here.

1. Let me start off by clearing this issue, we can assure you our Linkedin accounts are not newly established, however it's very true that it's only been recent that we've put more emphasis on Linkedin simply because it's not a popular if not extremely hardly used social platform in NZ.

2. Refer to above, same reason, the only reason we even bothered to create a Linkedin company profile was because our Marketing Team suggested it. Obvious as it is, it's empty, it's not hard to add details in, add people in, but it's our focus.

3. There's no Linkedin links on our Team on our landing page because our web team has not had the time to update it, or rather, their priorities are elsewhere, but on a few ICO listing sites we have linkedin our team members. At least for our NZ based team members. Linkedin is not accessible in China, so for our Chinese based team members, unless you would like for us to create profiles on their behalf, they simply don't have it and have never needed it. A few of our Advisors are also easily searchable via Google, I believe that would be more credible than Linkedin right?

*Another thing I'd like to add about Linkedin is how easy it is to create fake profiles, even ones that "seem" aged, extremely well connected and what not. I don't think Linkedin is a trustworthy source right?
We have the names of the team members and their prominent work places of the past listed, so a simple email or phone to those companies can confirm anyone's doubt as long as they are willing to go that extra mile.
**For credibility, we've actually posted photos of team members being together on some of our social media platforms, you may have missed them.

4. Our Bounty is managed by g0blin. They're quite a famous team.

5. We do have bounty members in our Telegram, but it's an extreme overstatement to say they're all bounter hunters, we have between 1k-1.5k bounty members in our 8k+ Telegram. And no one talks about bounty in there, so I don't know where you got your information from.

6. I don't think you understand what "powered by" means? We utilize Twitch's streaming capabilities to power our entire Tournament streaming. And we will be utilizing Alibaba Cloud for many data storage.

7. My personal Legal Advisor is Linda from DLA Piper, a personal friend of mine, and she has been giving me advise on the side. However it's out of our respect that we didn't list her. Did not know that would be a problem for you.

8. Multi-language coming soon. We haven't even started ICO yet.

9. Like I said above, ICO has not even started, our demos will be online for all to experience before it starts.

10. Our smart contract is on our github, again, I don't know where you get your information from.

11. Anyone that has conversed with us in Telegram knows we operate out of NZ, keyword: operate, we're also registered in Curacao for the eGaming License and in the midst of application for Malta. And we're also registered in China as a company too. The companies registered in China and NZ are responsible for tax and employee salaries.

12. Anyone that closely followed our progress in the early stage would know that we DID have a ver.1 Demo online that featured our betting platform, however it was pulled down by my request because I wanted a UI re-design, and wanted it to be re-released together with the greater part of the platform. It's coming very soon, and like I said, our ICO hasn't even started yet.

*To further shed some light, an extract directly out of the link you provided: it is not illegal for someone in New Zealand to participate in gambling over the Internet if that website is based overseas.


All in all, I'm not sure if you're just trying to spread FUD. But if you were really concerned and were interested in our project, you could've directly asked us many of these questions in our Telegram and we would've happily resolved them for you. However it doesn't seem like it that way.

Anyone with questions are more than welcome to join our Telegram and ask: https://t.me/asuracoin


Kind Regards,
Peter S.

CEO of Asura World LLC

[canyoncry]

1. Let me start off by clearing this issue, we can assure you our Linkedin accounts are not newly established, however it's very true that it's only been recent that we've put more emphasis on Linkedin simply because it's not a popular if not extremely hardly used social platform in NZ.

It' s already been known that linkedin and other social network profile are extremely important in the team and advisory board. You are making proposal to international audience and you are answering me that in NZ is not used.
Is your business only for NZ user? if no, why you haven't analized other countries? If yes, you must specify that on your whitepaper.
You are asking for money and you haven't prepared an international social market reasearch to understand your audience?


2. Refer to above, same reason, the only reason we even bothered to create a Linkedin company profile was because our Marketing Team suggested it. Obvious as it is, it's empty, it's not hard to add details in, add people in, but it's our focus.
And because it's not hard, why you haven't added people in? You should be prepared this before proposing your project, why after?

3. There's no Linkedin links on our Team on our landing page because our web team has not had the time to update it, or rather, their priorities are elsewhere, but on a few ICO listing sites we have linkedin our team members. At least for our NZ based team members. Linkedin is not accessible in China, so for our Chinese based team members, unless you would like for us to create profiles on their behalf, they simply don't have it and have never needed it. A few of our Advisors are also easily searchable via Google, I believe that would be more credible than Linkedin right?
What the fucking does it mean that they had no time to update the landing page? You should have developers for following your website update, so are saying to me that you haven't staff for following your website? If they have no skill to do this, how can you develop a platform?


*Another thing I'd like to add about Linkedin is how easy it is to create fake profiles, even ones that "seem" aged, extremely well connected and what not. I don't think Linkedin is a trustworthy source right?
We have the names of the team members and their prominent work places of the past listed, so a simple email or phone to those companies can confirm anyone's doubt as long as they are willing to go that extra mile.
**For credibility, we've actually posted photos of team members being together on some of our social media platforms, you may have missed them.
Dont' make us stupid please, These days linkedin is thustworth and fake profile are easily detectable, Why? Because always Ico advisor are business man that use it to confirm their involvment in advisory board, also team member use it to create trust.
FIND ME A SUCCESFULL ICO WITHOUT LEGIT LINKEDIN  OR OTHER SOCIAL LINK IN THE ADVISORY MEMBER BOARD! EVERY OF THEM HAVE IT AND IN THE SAME TIME SEARCH HOW MANY ICO WITHOUT SOCIAL LINK WAS SCAM. ALL OF THEM

4. Our Bounty is managed by g0blin. They're quite a famous team.
Why not in advisory board? Why i have to ask it and can't find on your website?

5. We do have bounty members in our Telegram, but it's an extreme overstatement to say they're all bounter hunters, we have between 1k-1.5k bounty members in our 8k+ Telegram. And no one talks about bounty in there, so I don't know where you got your information from.
I can confirm for sure, majority of them are indian, philippines ecc. that are well know bounty hunter, i got this information because i'm studying your channel and i've seen what is happening inside. Member join and ask nothing or bounty info.

6. I don't think you understand what "powered by" means? We utilize Twitch's streaming capabilities to power our entire Tournament streaming. And we will be utilizing Alibaba Cloud for many data storage.
I understand that "powerd by" it's not the claim that you can do because it's bad and flase marketing. It sounds like partnership with this company, and you already know it.

7. My personal Legal Advisor is Linda from DLA Piper, a personal friend of mine, and she has been giving me advise on the side. However it's out of our respect that we didn't list her. Did not know that would be a problem for you.
It's problem for transparency, not for me. You shoud have replied with her social network profile (linkedin or other), you are proposing a digital and social project and the team member doesnt use social digital platform?

8. Multi-language coming soon. We haven't even started ICO yet.
Doesn't matter if started or not, you need to create awareness before ico start or after?. Seems the classic "low cost" scam with same white label whitepaper, investor like me are nowdays educated on detecting this.

9. Like I said above, ICO has not even started, our demos will be online for all to experience before it starts.
Q1 is already finished, and no platform

10. Our smart contract is on our github, again, I don't know where you get your information from.
Yes, i saw it. And i can see that only CEO e COO are on it, every programmer use it why you don't follow your programmer? I think that they didn't exist 

11. Anyone that has conversed with us in Telegram knows we operate out of NZ, keyword: operate, we're also registered in Curacao for the eGaming License and in the midst of application for Malta. And we're also registered in China as a company too. The companies registered in China and NZ are responsible for tax and employee salaries.
WHERE IS YOUR COMPANIES REGISTRATION NUMBER, YOU HAVEN'T PUTTED THEM ON YOUR WEBSITE. EVERY TRANSPARENT ICO PUT IT IN THE WEBSITE. 

12. Anyone that closely followed our progress in the early stage would know that we DID have a ver.1 Demo online that featured our betting platform, however it was pulled down by my request because I wanted a UI re-design, and wanted it to be re-released together with the greater part of the platform. It's coming very soon, and like I said, our ICO hasn't even started yet.
Why no interactive screen of the demo are public?

*To further shed some light, an extract directly out of the link you provided: it is not illegal for someone in New Zealand to participate in gambling over the Internet if that website is based overseas.
Why not specified, why are you claiming everywhere that you are based in NZ? Why aren't you mentioning other places of the company?

All in all, I'm not sure if you're just trying to spread FUD. But if you were really concerned and were interested in our project, you could've directly asked us many of these questions in our Telegram and we would've happily resolved them for you. However it doesn't seem like it that way.
I'm not trying to spread fud, i wanted to invest in your project because usually i invest in all good gaming project but your project, if is real (and i think no) have a very bad management and for sure i will not invest in it. It's real trash project.

Anyone with questions are more than welcome to join our Telegram and ask: https://t.me/asuracoin
ooo yes, i asked, i asked...

[AsuraCoin]

Well, I'm not sure why you're so angry but I'll remain calm and hopefully quench your anger a bit.
I take matters of accusation seriously, thus the reason for my replies [even though I don't think many people will read this besides you and I]

Since you've made your point on how important you regard Linkedin, then we'll update our website just for you in the next 24 hours. But there are no Linkedin profiles for the following people simply because they never had one before they came on board with us, and if we were to have made one for them, they'd have 5-10 connections which looks super fake. But names like Stuart Feigin can easily be googled.

We didn't list any Bounty Managers same reason as TheKey or Effect.ai , they didn't either. [g0blin is also the power behind Effect.ai]

Never have we mentioned that we were in any sort of partnership with Twitch or Alibaba Cloud, and thus have never used that word. "Powered By" is in no reference to the meaning of Partnership, just like how many websites utilize Google's search engine and it's always labeled as "Powered By". For anyone confused by it, we are more than happy and explain it, and we have numerous time. This is not false marketing nor misleading, it's just people thinking a term means something else when it doesn't.

By publicly listing Linda as apart of our team, that would involve the entire DLA Piper. Which we chose out of respect for your position at work, not to. It's that simple, but if people are adamant on proof, I can arrange it if it's of utmost necessity.

As for github why we don't follow our programmer? you mean Nick Fujita of City of Zion? it's quite obvious he's on our team is it not?

In regards with company details, company registrations, and such, we haven't seen other NEO ICOs list them, again I'll use the reference of Effect.ai


All in all, some of your points, I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding, but you can be rest assured we're not a scam however I think your opinion has already been set in stone.

I just want to point out some things with your claim that we're a scam, I mean, going by basic logic, if I wanted to run a scam project, I wouldn't have chosen NEO, I most definitely would've made fake profiles on Linkedin [or can you purchase aged accounts?], and I definitely would not travel all the way to Amsterdam just to experience the NEO DevCon when we weren't even presenting. I also would've left our ver 1.0 uploaded online even though there are many areas to improve.

As a note taken from your experience, we will aim to update all our online presence to be more detailed.


Kind Regards,
Peter S.


PS: Our team is extremely active on in our Telegram, so if you did indeed ask any question inside, we would've followed it up instantly. Makes me wonder if you did indeed ask any question 

[canyoncry]

In every reply you are confirming that this project is having something wrong, so evasive and not clear answer.

Anyway i found interesting fact, you have literally copied and pasted my question on telegram in your btctalk with probably a fake/bought/bounty user profile (with also bad feed) to pump your announcement post and answered 2 min later.

This is my answer on telegram some days ago:
https://i.imgur.com/5w7YMxY.jpg

The day after i saw this in your ann thread:
https://i.imgur.com/18tr62g.png

I AM NOT TERMION! Can you say that in this there isn't something wrong? Well, you can say that i am Termion and i'm just creating FUD and it's ok but you used this pattern also with the only other legit user question that i seen on your telegram.

https://i.imgur.com/kJnONxd.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/p7HnDcQ.png

Seems strange that the only 2 questions copied and pasted from other user telegram's question was posted from differente users and received an istant reply while the other few questions haven't received any reply at all.

And yes i can confirm you that you have only bounty hunter in your active community. If you see the activity on your social networks you can see that any type of activities is made by them and it's normal because you opened more than 2 months ago your bounty thread and some days ago your announcement thread. So are saying to me that only 1.5k of the user are from bounty and other genuinely active on social network? No way, i'm not stupid and hope this help people to figure out how unclear this project is (if exist).

For the legal part are you saying that you haven't a lawyer that are working on the project but a friend that is giving some advise in a project like this? How can you open companies around the world and obtain gambling license without having it?

Majority legit ICO have company registration and these days some of them chat live with real person on the other side (not bot) and telephone number.

As you can see i asked on telegram and see whats happened in the pics that i've posted...

[aquarat]

Thank you for your thoughts canyoncry, they are very helpful.

[afterstorm]

NEW ASURA WORLD JUNE/JULY UPDATES:
https://medium.com/@asuracoin/asura-world-progress-update-june-apparels-development-7539c9dd5a5b

[sv.alyona]

Asura Coin ICO Officially Ended.

Woohoo! The ICO is over!

Over the past months leading up to our ICO, the Asura Team have all learnt and experienced many new experiences. We have all grown both individually and together as a team!

We’d like to take this opportunity to both share a little of our experience over this period of time and also update our community on our near future plans and current behind the scenes progress.

Asura World was founded on the concept of need from a gamer’s perspective, the need of everything streamlined, simplified with credibility, and all interlinked together. Not just from a capitalist point of view, but from what was lacking in the market after being players in the market for the past 15 years. This idea was always shelved as the cost of running such an operation greatly outweighed any likely ROI, the risks were simply far too high. However with the introduction of blockchain & smart contracts, this makes things possible, very very possible. The reason for our ICO.

Fast track forward almost a year, we wrap up our ICO. Looking back there were definitely areas we could improve on, however regardless, we are happy to have had this journey, to have our community of supporters.
https://medium.com/@asuracoin/asura-coin-ico-officially-ended-e30b0ea145cf