The Bytecoin Scam - A Continuation

[BDRatings]

Claim
Bytecoin is run by a highly disingenuous team, whose goal is most probably to maximize own gains by tricking people like you to buy the BCN token. Bytecoin can be classified as scam, not in the liberal interpretation often thrown around here, but in the classical sense.

Who am I and why am I investigating Bytecoin?
I am a fellow cryptocurrency enthusiast who in late 2017, early 2018 decided to start up a free cryptocurrency ratings agency, BD Ratings, to compete with Weiss Ratings (I guess you remember their entrance in the space). The coin selection process is random, drawn from Bitcoin block nounces. When finally block # 511650 hit, the two last digits of the nounce 207761428 selected the coin that by marketcap was number 29 on coinmarketcap.com. By that time, that happened to be Bytecoin. So this is not a targeted hit piece; I dived in to Bytecoin with an open mind just as I had done with other coins prior to this rating. I profit absolutely nothing by bashing Bytecoin. Neither do I profit anything from potential increased traffic to my coin ratings.

My membership status on bitcointalk.org is Newbie, so I can't provide pictures in this thread right now. I do however keep a number of printscreens as proof should they be required later. And finally, I decided to post this as a new thread because of the relatively low traction it has gotten elsewhere. No cryptocurrency newspaper I contacted has shown an interest in the findings. With this thread, I hope to change that as the proof of wrongdoing is massive. The inconsistencies are provided in separate "issues", all independent of each other. This means that the Bytecoin team ought to refute every single issue, and not come with a sweeping rebuttal. Let's hold them accountable.

What these claims does not include
In 2014, rethink-your-strategy turned the spotlight to multiple serious discrepancies in the official Bytecoin issuance story. The Bytecoin team's claim of a chain stretching back to 2012 seemed suddenly dubious. Read up on that historical thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0) as well if you like, it is one of the best out there. My investigation starts where that thread ended. The main overlapping issue seems to be the evidence provided of the use of sockpuppets, but other than that I provide new findings.

Intro
Bytecoin was announced on the 12th of March 2014 by user DStrange on bitcointalk.org (BCT). The coin was based on the new, privacy focused CryptoNote technology, thus using the memory-bound CryptoNight consensus algorithm that was quite resistant to ASIC’s back then. DStrange was not a developer; he appears to have stumbled upon Bytecoin when trying to mine a useless Bitcoin clone with the same name. He quickly put on the Bytecoin cloak and started handing out free coins.

Issue I: Early sockpuppets

(Note: for links and proof references, go to the Medium articles provided at the end of this post)

First to reply to DStrange’s post was user Lamalicious, hailing the project as looking like Satoshi’s second venture. Lamalicious registered on BCT on the 23rd of December 2013, the exact same date as DStrange. Another early poster in the thread, EndlessWin, also registered on the 23rd. Another user, Rias, appeared in the Bytecoin thread and showed great interest in the project. Rias wrote his first post on BCT on 20th of Jan 2014. So did the user Danni. DStrange first wrote something on BCT on the 21st of Jan 2014. EndlessWin created his first post on the 21st as well. Lamalicious created his first BCT post on the 22nd of Jan 2014, as did user Hexah. Cheesus first posted on BCT on the 23rd. Hexah, Cheesus and Danni registered their accounts with minutes apart.

And this is where it gets stranger. From the 5th of February to the 5th of March that year, all seven of these users go completely dark. Just before the 5th of February, and just after the 5th of March, two weird things happened as well. All seven are posting on the BCT “Beginners & Help” section, welcoming newcomers. DStrange even welcomes Rias in person. Danni interacts with DStrange in another thread about favorite movies. In one thread, Rias welcomes one person two separate times, probably forgetting to switch logged in account. Hexah is in that same thread saying hello as well. Note that this is one week before DStrange gets the Bytecoin announcement thread going, so they are not supposed to have met yet.

The second weird thing is that the seven supposedly independent users all show an interest in Putin and the invasion of Ukraine that occurred by this time. So to spell it out clearly, seven users that started writing on BCT at more or less the exact same time (many of which registered on the same day even), went dormant for one month, activated at the exact same time to post in the welcome-section of BCT as well as about the Crimea conflict, to finally rally under the Bytecoin flag later that March. rethink-your-strategy also started mapping this, but not to the full extent as he focused on other issues.

A couple of pages in, on 11th of April and onward, user Keeminakar ignites the rumor that Satoshi is involved with Bytecoin. FasterStronger joins the discussion, praising the coin. MadridReal perpetuates the Satoshi rumor. Qwerty777, and Agent99 add to the discussion as well. They are all registered on the dates 20th, 21st or 22nd of March 2014. They are all likely Russian/Ukrainian (notice the use of Russian emoticons where semicolon is omitted due to standard keyboard layout/preferences, as well as the interest in Russian translations, talk of Russian relatives etc.). All five of these users stop posting altogether on the 14th, 15th and 28th of September 2014. Then they are dormant for almost 4 years, when out of nowhere, four of them start posting again in February 2018, seemingly sold to new owners considering the change of writing style.

In June that same year, rethink-your-strategy starts uncovering discrepancies in the CryptoNote web page and whitepaper. He quickly also confirms that a certain BCT user that performed detailed blockchain analysis on the Bytecoin chain to prove its legitimacy, was actually a bought account. This is when more sockpuppets come forward to defend Bytecoin. madzooka is the first one, and a quick user analysis reveals a common pattern. madzooka’s earlier posts complain about missing some Bitcoin meet-up in Cleveland, USA. He also writes that he is interested in a certain California meet-up. What is evident is that English is not his first language, and a few posts later — there they are — the Russian emoticons. He also discussed the Ukrainian crisis prior to Bytecoin involvement, and he wrote in the newbie section of BCT, exactly according to pattern. User DNScode repeats the operation; defending Bytecoin against rethink-your-strategy’s accusations, while having earlier written in the newbie section, discussed the Ukraine conflict, and lastly used Russian emoticons. His account was registered on the 19th of March 2014, just in line with the other sockpuppets created on the 20th, 21st and 22nd. greenteanosugar chimes in. This user is registered 19th of March, then goes silent on 15th of September like most of the others. GreedyBoy, registered on the 20th of March, fiercely defends Bytecoin short thereafter. He gives away his background by Russian emoticons, the goes dark September 13th 2014 before re-appearing 4 years later with what seems to be a new account owner. Other probable sockpuppets are AtomicDoge, werrindor, David1978, Rockefeller, Meggie, JJKirsch, Monkeyseemonkeydo, TonyZX, Stanford, jolipenria, JPSelzer.

Issue II: Jenny Goldberg
On the 25th of July 2017, new BCT user BCN_official announces that she, Jenny Goldberg, is the new Bytecoin community manager. She confirms that old Bytecoin developers are still involved with the project, and that there is a strong roadmap going forward. From that point in time, she has been extremely active on the Bytecoin Reddit, Twitter and BCT. The problem here is, to no ones surprise, that Jenny Goldberg uses Russian emoticons (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=512747.msg21724861#msg21724861). It is not evidence of connection to the 2014 sockpuppets, but it sure as hell must be uncommon to be named Jenny Goldberg as a Russian. And Jenny is listed on the official bytecoin.org webpage.

What may be the only published audio recording of a Bytecoin team member, this Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqLWFcSUlwo) confirms a few things earlier suspected. English is not Jenny’s native language, listen for yourself. The sound also indicates that some kind of voice changer was applied.

Applying Jenny’s twitter account to the Twitter Archiving Project data capture yields the following result:

"translator_type":"none","protected":false,"verified":false,"followers_count":123,"friends_count":47,"listed_count":1,"favourites_count":0,"statuses_count":6,"created_at":"Tue Apr 10 09:28:22 +0000 2018","utc_offset":null,"time_zone":null,"geo_enabled":false,"lang":"ru"

The last word proves that Jenny used a computer with Russian language settings while setting up her account, or that she has such language settings right now. I verified the validity of this method by checking multiple Swedish Twitter accounts and they all yielded “lang”: “sv”.

Jenny Goldberg claims as you may know to reside in or around Barcelona. It came as no surprise then when I found a Barcelona crypto meetup group where the Bytecoin logo is utilized and where a Jenny G is admin. The group with its 175 members have 1 past meetup with 57 attendees. Looking at a couple of comments for this meetup, we find:

It is possible that anyone doesn’t know the location? It is a fake meetup?! I already asked on telegram and I received no answer! What a pity! - Theresa T

60 ppl confirmed and no one apart from us is asking about the location :/ so strange.. Idk maybe the info is somewhere else, in Telegram for example? I don't have an account so haven't check it. Anyway, given the circumstances I won't go >.< - Mariona

The meetup shows indeed no location at all. Wanting to double check, I contacted another confirmed attendee by mail. His answer: Hello, I believe it did not happen. I was waiting for the location to be announced but it never was, and people complained about it on the Meetup Comments.


Issue III: AssetRush
Jenny is the Bytecoin community manager as well as CCO of AssetRush (https://assetrush.com/), a new venture mainly providing token promotion services. When skimming their webpage, you will notice that they seem to have 7 team members, Jenny included. Just a little more than a month ago, I posted the following reply on BCT (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34881099#msg34881099). You will notice an investigation of the AssetRush team started back then, and interestingly, the full team numbered closer to 20 — all with different pictures of the same distinct photo style. This means most of the team members have been taken off the webpage since then. Only 5 of the now 7 team members were on the earlier team.

What proof is there to this claim of almost 20 team members? You can see in the BCT post that I link to Twitter users no longer found on the AssetRush team list. Other BCT users reply to that post after also reviewing the team webpage, acting as verification that all those disappearing team members were in fact on the AssetRush webpage earlier. It is still possible to manually look at all earlier team members since the webpage still hosts their pictures in the background. Just change the number in this link string and you will see at least 16 different team members (I saved all pictures): https://assetrush.com/img/teamFaces_6.png

Out of the 20 or so people, only 4 had Twitter accounts. They were all created between 4–12 April 2018. Twitter is quite common these days, so one might wonder why not a single person out of a qualified team of 20 had a personal twitter account prior to their AssetRush venture. Twitter seems to archive some user stats, including creation dates, so by this method, 4–12th April was confirmed. Hovering over users’ profiles shows creation date as well.

Back in April, I continued the investigation of AssetRush team members by checking their LinkedIn profiles, which only 5 of them had. Jenny has the oldest LinkedIn account it seems. Her feed activity started in July 2017. This is in line with the birth of the BCN_official Reddit user as well as the re-activation of the then dormant bytecoin_bcn Twitter account. CEO David Booker’s first activity was two months ago so we can assume he joined LinkedIn then. Yet he has over a 1000 followers — something many active networkers out there fail to achieve. He is also using Russian emoticons, which seems weird for someone with that name. David Petrachini’s feed activity started two months ago as well. Yet he had over 1300 followers. The account is now even terminated, possibly because I pointed these discrepancies out in April. David’s Twitter account is still active, but unfollowed Russian news outlets immediately after I pointed this fact out. Martina Sarto’s feed started a few weeks after David’s. She had 658 followers last time I checked. Now her account is terminated. Jenn Bruney seemed to have joined LinkedIn just after Martina but still managed to get 726 followers before terminating her account. These high amounts of followers obtained so quickly are obviously bought, and any LinkedIn veteran can confirm that. The account shut-downs are probably part of some cover-up of the whole Bytecoin/AssetRush mess. It must be a loss for them as the administration of all accounts, and the work put down to make them look and seem normal, is lost.  David, Martina and Jenn all tweeted in a way that confirmed my suspicion that English is not at all their native language.

Try the links yourself:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-petrachini/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martina-sarto/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-bruney/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennygoldberg/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/booker-david/


Questions that demand answers:

• How does the Bytecoin team explain all the sockpuppets present in the BCT ANN thread, many tied even to the OP DStrange? You have never addressed this issue since I mapped all of them.
• Can Jenny once and for all admit that 'Jenny Goldberg' is a pseudonym, now when we see through the massive maskirovka undertakings taken on Twitter, LinkedIn, meetup.com etc.?
• Can Jenny elaborate on the Bytecoin meetup in Barcelona and why it seems to have been faked?
• Can Jenny once and for all come clear with the purpose of AssetRush, why she faked all those team members, and if the Bytecoin team is involved in that as well?

What can you do?
If you sit on relevant information about Bytecoin and AssetRush not brought up in this thread, please post it here. If the information is sensitive due to anonymity preferences, you may contact me at bdratings@protonmail.com and I will respect your wish to privacy.

If you have contacts in relevant media outlets, please forward this information. I am certain the story is good enough to drive traffic.


Endnote
Most of the above claims are laid out in two of my previous articles. For detailed proof with links and other references, go to them.
https://medium.com/@bdratings/bytecoin-puppets-among-us-7381db79c468
https://medium.com/@bdratings/an-update-on-the-bytecoin-farce-3ae34ce45ba8

,or check the very end of this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34853259#msg34853259

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[jwinterm]

Nice work. Just FYI, if you didn't know "Jenny" controls the /u/BCN_Official account on Reddit as well.

[keyrun]

Bytecoin has a suspicious start, operation, it was nearly dead before again rejuvenating.
Though a large supply limits how much people can manipulate it, still I believe the developer have a huge portion to play with.

[charlotte04]

Claim
Bytecoin is run by a highly disingenuous team, whose goal is most probably to maximize own gains by tricking people like you to buy the BCN token. Bytecoin can be classified as scam, not in the liberal interpretation often thrown around here, but in the classical sense.

Who am I and why am I investigating Bytecoin?
I am a fellow cryptocurrency enthusiast who in late 2017, early 2018 decided to start up a free cryptocurrency ratings agency, BD Ratings, to compete with Weiss Ratings (I guess you remember their entrance in the space). The coin selection process is random, drawn from Bitcoin block nounces. When finally block # 511650 hit, the two last digits of the nounce 207761428 selected the coin that by marketcap was number 29 on coinmarketcap.com. By that time, that happened to be Bytecoin. So this is not a targeted hit piece; I dived in to Bytecoin with an open mind just as I had done with other coins prior to this rating. I profit absolutely nothing by bashing Bytecoin. Neither do I profit anything from potential increased traffic to my coin ratings.

My membership status on bitcointalk.org is Newbie, so I can't provide pictures in this thread right now. I do however keep a number of printscreens as proof should they be required later. And finally, I decided to post this as a new thread because of the relatively low traction it has gotten elsewhere. No cryptocurrency newspaper I contacted has shown an interest in the findings. With this thread, I hope to change that as the proof of wrongdoing is massive. The inconsistencies are provided in separate "issues", all independent of each other. This means that the Bytecoin team ought to refute every single issue, and not come with a sweeping rebuttal. Let's hold them accountable.

What these claims does not include
In 2014, rethink-your-strategy turned the spotlight to multiple serious discrepancies in the official Bytecoin issuance story. The Bytecoin team's claim of a chain stretching back to 2012 seemed suddenly dubious. Read up on that historical thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0) as well if you like, it is one of the best out there. My investigation starts where that thread ended. The main overlapping issue seems to be the evidence provided of the use of sockpuppets, but other than that I provide new findings.

Intro
Bytecoin was announced on the 12th of March 2014 by user DStrange on bitcointalk.org (BCT). The coin was based on the new, privacy focused CryptoNote technology, thus using the memory-bound CryptoNight consensus algorithm that was quite resistant to ASIC’s back then. DStrange was not a developer; he appears to have stumbled upon Bytecoin when trying to mine a useless Bitcoin clone with the same name. He quickly put on the Bytecoin cloak and started handing out free coins.

Issue I: Early sockpuppets

(Note: for links and proof references, go to the Medium articles provided at the end of this post)

First to reply to DStrange’s post was user Lamalicious, hailing the project as looking like Satoshi’s second venture. Lamalicious registered on BCT on the 23rd of December 2013, the exact same date as DStrange. Another early poster in the thread, EndlessWin, also registered on the 23rd. Another user, Rias, appeared in the Bytecoin thread and showed great interest in the project. Rias wrote his first post on BCT on 20th of Jan 2014. So did the user Danni. DStrange first wrote something on BCT on the 21st of Jan 2014. EndlessWin created his first post on the 21st as well. Lamalicious created his first BCT post on the 22nd of Jan 2014, as did user Hexah. Cheesus first posted on BCT on the 23rd. Hexah, Cheesus and Danni registered their accounts with minutes apart.

And this is where it gets stranger. From the 5th of February to the 5th of March that year, all seven of these users go completely dark. Just before the 5th of February, and just after the 5th of March, two weird things happened as well. All seven are posting on the BCT “Beginners & Help” section, welcoming newcomers. DStrange even welcomes Rias in person. Danni interacts with DStrange in another thread about favorite movies. In one thread, Rias welcomes one person two separate times, probably forgetting to switch logged in account. Hexah is in that same thread saying hello as well. Note that this is one week before DStrange gets the Bytecoin announcement thread going, so they are not supposed to have met yet.

The second weird thing is that the seven supposedly independent users all show an interest in Putin and the invasion of Ukraine that occurred by this time. So to spell it out clearly, seven users that started writing on BCT at more or less the exact same time (many of which registered on the same day even), went dormant for one month, activated at the exact same time to post in the welcome-section of BCT as well as about the Crimea conflict, to finally rally under the Bytecoin flag later that March. rethink-your-strategy also started mapping this, but not to the full extent as he focused on other issues.

A couple of pages in, on 11th of April and onward, user Keeminakar ignites the rumor that Satoshi is involved with Bytecoin. FasterStronger joins the discussion, praising the coin. MadridReal perpetuates the Satoshi rumor. Qwerty777, and Agent99 add to the discussion as well. They are all registered on the dates 20th, 21st or 22nd of March 2014. They are all likely Russian/Ukrainian (notice the use of Russian emoticons where semicolon is omitted due to standard keyboard layout/preferences, as well as the interest in Russian translations, talk of Russian relatives etc.). All five of these users stop posting altogether on the 14th, 15th and 28th of September 2014. Then they are dormant for almost 4 years, when out of nowhere, four of them start posting again in February 2018, seemingly sold to new owners considering the change of writing style.

In June that same year, rethink-your-strategy starts uncovering discrepancies in the CryptoNote web page and whitepaper. He quickly also confirms that a certain BCT user that performed detailed blockchain analysis on the Bytecoin chain to prove its legitimacy, was actually a bought account. This is when more sockpuppets come forward to defend Bytecoin. madzooka is the first one, and a quick user analysis reveals a common pattern. madzooka’s earlier posts complain about missing some Bitcoin meet-up in Cleveland, USA. He also writes that he is interested in a certain California meet-up. What is evident is that English is not his first language, and a few posts later — there they are — the Russian emoticons. He also discussed the Ukrainian crisis prior to Bytecoin involvement, and he wrote in the newbie section of BCT, exactly according to pattern. User DNScode repeats the operation; defending Bytecoin against rethink-your-strategy’s accusations, while having earlier written in the newbie section, discussed the Ukraine conflict, and lastly used Russian emoticons. His account was registered on the 19th of March 2014, just in line with the other sockpuppets created on the 20th, 21st and 22nd. greenteanosugar chimes in. This user is registered 19th of March, then goes silent on 15th of September like most of the others. GreedyBoy, registered on the 20th of March, fiercely defends Bytecoin short thereafter. He gives away his background by Russian emoticons, the goes dark September 13th 2014 before re-appearing 4 years later with what seems to be a new account owner. Other probable sockpuppets are AtomicDoge, werrindor, David1978, Rockefeller, Meggie, JJKirsch, Monkeyseemonkeydo, TonyZX, Stanford, jolipenria, JPSelzer.

Issue II: Jenny Goldberg
On the 25th of July 2017, new BCT user BCN_official announces that she, Jenny Goldberg, is the new Bytecoin community manager. She confirms that old Bytecoin developers are still involved with the project, and that there is a strong roadmap going forward. From that point in time, she has been extremely active on the Bytecoin Reddit, Twitter and BCT. The problem here is, to no ones surprise, that Jenny Goldberg uses Russian emoticons (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=512747.msg21724861#msg21724861). It is not evidence of connection to the 2014 sockpuppets, but it sure as hell must be uncommon to be named Jenny Goldberg as a Russian. And Jenny is listed on the official bytecoin.org webpage.

What may be the only published audio recording of a Bytecoin team member, this Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqLWFcSUlwo) confirms a few things earlier suspected. English is not Jenny’s native language, listen for yourself. The sound also indicates that some kind of voice changer was applied.

Applying Jenny’s twitter account to the Twitter Archiving Project data capture yields the following result:

"translator_type":"none","protected":false,"verified":false,"followers_count":123,"friends_count":47,"listed_count":1,"favourites_count":0,"statuses_count":6,"created_at":"Tue Apr 10 09:28:22 +0000 2018","utc_offset":null,"time_zone":null,"geo_enabled":false,"lang":"ru"

The last word proves that Jenny used a computer with Russian language settings while setting up her account, or that she has such language settings right now. I verified the validity of this method by checking multiple Swedish Twitter accounts and they all yielded “lang”: “sv”.

Jenny Goldberg claims as you may know to reside in or around Barcelona. It came as no surprise then when I found a Barcelona crypto meetup group where the Bytecoin logo is utilized and where a Jenny G is admin. The group with its 175 members have 1 past meetup with 57 attendees. Looking at a couple of comments for this meetup, we find:

It is possible that anyone doesn’t know the location? It is a fake meetup?! I already asked on telegram and I received no answer! What a pity! - Theresa T

60 ppl confirmed and no one apart from us is asking about the location :/ so strange.. Idk maybe the info is somewhere else, in Telegram for example? I don't have an account so haven't check it. Anyway, given the circumstances I won't go >.< - Mariona

The meetup shows indeed no location at all. Wanting to double check, I contacted another confirmed attendee by mail. His answer: Hello, I believe it did not happen. I was waiting for the location to be announced but it never was, and people complained about it on the Meetup Comments.


Issue III: AssetRush
Jenny is the Bytecoin community manager as well as CCO of AssetRush (https://assetrush.com/), a new venture mainly providing token promotion services. When skimming their webpage, you will notice that they seem to have 7 team members, Jenny included. Just a little more than a month ago, I posted the following reply on BCT (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34881099#msg34881099). You will notice an investigation of the AssetRush team started back then, and interestingly, the full team numbered closer to 20 — all with different pictures of the same distinct photo style. This means most of the team members have been taken off the webpage since then. Only 5 of the now 7 team members were on the earlier team.

What proof is there to this claim of almost 20 team members? You can see in the BCT post that I link to Twitter users no longer found on the AssetRush team list. Other BCT users reply to that post after also reviewing the team webpage, acting as verification that all those disappearing team members were in fact on the AssetRush webpage earlier. It is still possible to manually look at all earlier team members since the webpage still hosts their pictures in the background. Just change the number in this link string and you will see at least 16 different team members (I saved all pictures): https://assetrush.com/img/teamFaces_6.png

Out of the 20 or so people, only 4 had Twitter accounts. They were all created between 4–12 April 2018. Twitter is quite common these days, so one might wonder why not a single person out of a qualified team of 20 had a personal twitter account prior to their AssetRush venture. Twitter seems to archive some user stats, including creation dates, so by this method, 4–12th April was confirmed. Hovering over users’ profiles shows creation date as well.

Back in April, I continued the investigation of AssetRush team members by checking their LinkedIn profiles, which only 5 of them had. Jenny has the oldest LinkedIn account it seems. Her feed activity started in July 2017. This is in line with the birth of the BCN_official Reddit user as well as the re-activation of the then dormant bytecoin_bcn Twitter account. CEO David Booker’s first activity was two months ago so we can assume he joined LinkedIn then. Yet he has over a 1000 followers — something many active networkers out there fail to achieve. He is also using Russian emoticons, which seems weird for someone with that name. David Petrachini’s feed activity started two months ago as well. Yet he had over 1300 followers. The account is now even terminated, possibly because I pointed these discrepancies out in April. David’s Twitter account is still active, but unfollowed Russian news outlets immediately after I pointed this fact out. Martina Sarto’s feed started a few weeks after David’s. She had 658 followers last time I checked. Now her account is terminated. Jenn Bruney seemed to have joined LinkedIn just after Martina but still managed to get 726 followers before terminating her account. These high amounts of followers obtained so quickly are obviously bought, and any LinkedIn veteran can confirm that. The account shut-downs are probably part of some cover-up of the whole Bytecoin/AssetRush mess. It must be a loss for them as the administration of all accounts, and the work put down to make them look and seem normal, is lost.  David, Martina and Jenn all tweeted in a way that confirmed my suspicion that English is not at all their native language.

Try the links yourself:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-petrachini/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martina-sarto/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-bruney/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennygoldberg/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/booker-david/


Questions that demand answers:

• How does the Bytecoin team explain all the sockpuppets present in the BCT ANN thread, many tied even to the OP DStrange? You have never addressed this issue since I mapped all of them.
• Can Jenny once and for all admit that 'Jenny Goldberg' is a pseudonym, now when we see through the massive maskirovka undertakings taken on Twitter, LinkedIn, meetup.com etc.?
• Can Jenny elaborate on the Bytecoin meetup in Barcelona and why it seems to have been faked?
• Can Jenny once and for all come clear with the purpose of AssetRush, why she faked all those team members, and if the Bytecoin team is involved in that as well?

What can you do?
If you sit on relevant information about Bytecoin and AssetRush not brought up in this thread, please post it here. If the information is sensitive due to anonymity preferences, you may contact me at bdratings@protonmail.com and I will respect your wish to privacy.

If you have contacts in relevant media outlets, please forward this information. I am certain the story is good enough to drive traffic.


Endnote
Most of the above claims are laid out in two of my previous articles. For detailed proof with links and other references, go to them.
https://medium.com/@bdratings/bytecoin-puppets-among-us-7381db79c468
https://medium.com/@bdratings/an-update-on-the-bytecoin-farce-3ae34ce45ba8

,or check the very end of this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34853259#msg34853259

Yep. I got also hype with that coin and I went down together with that. I honestly made that bad decision that I regretted as an investor.

[BDRatings]

Nice work. Just FYI, if you didn't know "Jenny" controls the /u/BCN_Official account on Reddit as well.

Yeah, and she posted in the same thread as good old DStrange back in 2017. This means her activity overlaps with the "old team".

https://www.reddit.com/r/BytecoinBCN/comments/6sp00o/warning_bells/

[BDRatings]

'Jenny', the official BCN community manager, now urges BCN supporters to report my Medium account in order to shut it down again. Also, Jenny's friend and co-worker 'David Petrachini' finally replied on Twitter. I wonder what excuse he will give for why he recently deleted his 2 month old LinkedIn profile with over 1300 contacts.

See Jenny's call to arms here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BytecoinBCN/comments/8sz6fh/lets_stop_the_fake_news/
David's tweet: https://twitter.com/DavidPetrachini/status/1010184440058966016

[versprichnix]

Very interesting to observe your "ratings".

What are the coins you rate as "precious"?

[BDRatings]

Very interesting to observe your "ratings".

What are the coins you rate as "precious"?

Thank you, but that is a bit off topic here. Feel free to browse my Medium blog to check the coins rated so far. BTC is rated highest out of those.

[Hueristic]

I find this Ironically amusing.



[Hackernoon] Community Management: An Exclusive Interview with Jenny Goldberg

Oh, my favorite question. The best practice is to be transparent and honest with your community.

https://hackernoon.com/community-management-an-exclusive-interview-with-jenny-goldberg-f04e52b94b82?source=user_profile---------0----------------

[owlcatz]

LOL... Seriously? 

"My experience has shown me that you shouldn’t even try to hide something from your community. To do so creates a serious risk of losing all the support and enthusiasm that you have so painstakingly built. If your community sees that you are not a reliable person, their emotional divestment will be immediate, and their financial divestment will follow very shortly. It’s a pity that it took me a few months to realize this, but experience is often bitter."

[versprichnix]

"My experience has shown me that you shouldn’t even try to hide something from your community. To do so creates a serious risk of losing all the support and enthusiasm that you have so painstakingly built. If your community sees that you are not a reliable person, their emotional divestment will be immediate, and their financial divestment will follow very shortly. It’s a pity that it took me a few months to realize this, but experience is often bitter."

Who wrote this? It's rather intelligent. He/She get's my merit.

[owlcatz]

"My experience has shown me that you shouldn’t even try to hide something from your community. To do so creates a serious risk of losing all the support and enthusiasm that you have so painstakingly built. If your community sees that you are not a reliable person, their emotional divestment will be immediate, and their financial divestment will follow very shortly. It’s a pity that it took me a few months to realize this, but experience is often bitter."

Who wrote this? It's rather intelligent. He/She get's my merit.

Why, she's the head of a scam coin that does none of the above she speaks of...

[Hueristic]

You Can Now 51% Attack a Coin for as Little as $500

https://news.bitcoin.com/you-can-now-51-attack-a-coin-for-as-little-as-500/

Bytecoin Could Be Attacked for Just $557

I love how they singled this scam coin out. Lol

[Mrcharles]

Claim
Bytecoin is run by a highly disingenuous team, whose goal is most probably to maximize own gains by tricking people like you to buy the BCN token. Bytecoin can be classified as scam, not in the liberal interpretation often thrown around here, but in the classical sense.

Who am I and why am I investigating Bytecoin?
I am a fellow cryptocurrency enthusiast who in late 2017, early 2018 decided to start up a free cryptocurrency ratings agency, BD Ratings, to compete with Weiss Ratings (I guess you remember their entrance in the space). The coin selection process is random, drawn from Bitcoin block nounces. When finally block # 511650 hit, the two last digits of the nounce 207761428 selected the coin that by marketcap was number 29 on coinmarketcap.com. By that time, that happened to be Bytecoin. So this is not a targeted hit piece; I dived in to Bytecoin with an open mind just as I had done with other coins prior to this rating. I profit absolutely nothing by bashing Bytecoin. Neither do I profit anything from potential increased traffic to my coin ratings.

My membership status on bitcointalk.org is Newbie, so I can't provide pictures in this thread right now. I do however keep a number of printscreens as proof should they be required later. And finally, I decided to post this as a new thread because of the relatively low traction it has gotten elsewhere. No cryptocurrency newspaper I contacted has shown an interest in the findings. With this thread, I hope to change that as the proof of wrongdoing is massive. The inconsistencies are provided in separate "issues", all independent of each other. This means that the Bytecoin team ought to refute every single issue, and not come with a sweeping rebuttal. Let's hold them accountable.

What these claims does not include
In 2014, rethink-your-strategy turned the spotlight to multiple serious discrepancies in the official Bytecoin issuance story. The Bytecoin team's claim of a chain stretching back to 2012 seemed suddenly dubious. Read up on that historical thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0) as well if you like, it is one of the best out there. My investigation starts where that thread ended. The main overlapping issue seems to be the evidence provided of the use of sockpuppets, but other than that I provide new findings.

Intro
Bytecoin was announced on the 12th of March 2014 by user DStrange on bitcointalk.org (BCT). The coin was based on the new, privacy focused CryptoNote technology, thus using the memory-bound CryptoNight consensus algorithm that was quite resistant to ASIC’s back then. DStrange was not a developer; he appears to have stumbled upon Bytecoin when trying to mine a useless Bitcoin clone with the same name. He quickly put on the Bytecoin cloak and started handing out free coins.

Issue I: Early sockpuppets

(Note: for links and proof references, go to the Medium articles provided at the end of this post)

First to reply to DStrange’s post was user Lamalicious, hailing the project as looking like Satoshi’s second venture. Lamalicious registered on BCT on the 23rd of December 2013, the exact same date as DStrange. Another early poster in the thread, EndlessWin, also registered on the 23rd. Another user, Rias, appeared in the Bytecoin thread and showed great interest in the project. Rias wrote his first post on BCT on 20th of Jan 2014. So did the user Danni. DStrange first wrote something on BCT on the 21st of Jan 2014. EndlessWin created his first post on the 21st as well. Lamalicious created his first BCT post on the 22nd of Jan 2014, as did user Hexah. Cheesus first posted on BCT on the 23rd. Hexah, Cheesus and Danni registered their accounts with minutes apart.

And this is where it gets stranger. From the 5th of February to the 5th of March that year, all seven of these users go completely dark. Just before the 5th of February, and just after the 5th of March, two weird things happened as well. All seven are posting on the BCT “Beginners & Help” section, welcoming newcomers. DStrange even welcomes Rias in person. Danni interacts with DStrange in another thread about favorite movies. In one thread, Rias welcomes one person two separate times, probably forgetting to switch logged in account. Hexah is in that same thread saying hello as well. Note that this is one week before DStrange gets the Bytecoin announcement thread going, so they are not supposed to have met yet.

The second weird thing is that the seven supposedly independent users all show an interest in Putin and the invasion of Ukraine that occurred by this time. So to spell it out clearly, seven users that started writing on BCT at more or less the exact same time (many of which registered on the same day even), went dormant for one month, activated at the exact same time to post in the welcome-section of BCT as well as about the Crimea conflict, to finally rally under the Bytecoin flag later that March. rethink-your-strategy also started mapping this, but not to the full extent as he focused on other issues.

A couple of pages in, on 11th of April and onward, user Keeminakar ignites the rumor that Satoshi is involved with Bytecoin. FasterStronger joins the discussion, praising the coin. MadridReal perpetuates the Satoshi rumor. Qwerty777, and Agent99 add to the discussion as well. They are all registered on the dates 20th, 21st or 22nd of March 2014. They are all likely Russian/Ukrainian (notice the use of Russian emoticons where semicolon is omitted due to standard keyboard layout/preferences, as well as the interest in Russian translations, talk of Russian relatives etc.). All five of these users stop posting altogether on the 14th, 15th and 28th of September 2014. Then they are dormant for almost 4 years, when out of nowhere, four of them start posting again in February 2018, seemingly sold to new owners considering the change of writing style.

In June that same year, rethink-your-strategy starts uncovering discrepancies in the CryptoNote web page and whitepaper. He quickly also confirms that a certain BCT user that performed detailed blockchain analysis on the Bytecoin chain to prove its legitimacy, was actually a bought account. This is when more sockpuppets come forward to defend Bytecoin. madzooka is the first one, and a quick user analysis reveals a common pattern. madzooka’s earlier posts complain about missing some Bitcoin meet-up in Cleveland, USA. He also writes that he is interested in a certain California meet-up. What is evident is that English is not his first language, and a few posts later — there they are — the Russian emoticons. He also discussed the Ukrainian crisis prior to Bytecoin involvement, and he wrote in the newbie section of BCT, exactly according to pattern. User DNScode repeats the operation; defending Bytecoin against rethink-your-strategy’s accusations, while having earlier written in the newbie section, discussed the Ukraine conflict, and lastly used Russian emoticons. His account was registered on the 19th of March 2014, just in line with the other sockpuppets created on the 20th, 21st and 22nd. greenteanosugar chimes in. This user is registered 19th of March, then goes silent on 15th of September like most of the others. GreedyBoy, registered on the 20th of March, fiercely defends Bytecoin short thereafter. He gives away his background by Russian emoticons, the goes dark September 13th 2014 before re-appearing 4 years later with what seems to be a new account owner. Other probable sockpuppets are AtomicDoge, werrindor, David1978, Rockefeller, Meggie, JJKirsch, Monkeyseemonkeydo, TonyZX, Stanford, jolipenria, JPSelzer.

Issue II: Jenny Goldberg
On the 25th of July 2017, new BCT user BCN_official announces that she, Jenny Goldberg, is the new Bytecoin community manager. She confirms that old Bytecoin developers are still involved with the project, and that there is a strong roadmap going forward. From that point in time, she has been extremely active on the Bytecoin Reddit, Twitter and BCT. The problem here is, to no ones surprise, that Jenny Goldberg uses Russian emoticons (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=512747.msg21724861#msg21724861). It is not evidence of connection to the 2014 sockpuppets, but it sure as hell must be uncommon to be named Jenny Goldberg as a Russian. And Jenny is listed on the official bytecoin.org webpage.

What may be the only published audio recording of a Bytecoin team member, this Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqLWFcSUlwo) confirms a few things earlier suspected. English is not Jenny’s native language, listen for yourself. The sound also indicates that some kind of voice changer was applied.

Applying Jenny’s twitter account to the Twitter Archiving Project data capture yields the following result:

"translator_type":"none","protected":false,"verified":false,"followers_count":123,"friends_count":47,"listed_count":1,"favourites_count":0,"statuses_count":6,"created_at":"Tue Apr 10 09:28:22 +0000 2018","utc_offset":null,"time_zone":null,"geo_enabled":false,"lang":"ru"

The last word proves that Jenny used a computer with Russian language settings while setting up her account, or that she has such language settings right now. I verified the validity of this method by checking multiple Swedish Twitter accounts and they all yielded “lang”: “sv”.

Jenny Goldberg claims as you may know to reside in or around Barcelona. It came as no surprise then when I found a Barcelona crypto meetup group where the Bytecoin logo is utilized and where a Jenny G is admin. The group with its 175 members have 1 past meetup with 57 attendees. Looking at a couple of comments for this meetup, we find:

It is possible that anyone doesn’t know the location? It is a fake meetup?! I already asked on telegram and I received no answer! What a pity! - Theresa T

60 ppl confirmed and no one apart from us is asking about the location :/ so strange.. Idk maybe the info is somewhere else, in Telegram for example? I don't have an account so haven't check it. Anyway, given the circumstances I won't go >.< - Mariona

The meetup shows indeed no location at all. Wanting to double check, I contacted another confirmed attendee by mail. His answer: Hello, I believe it did not happen. I was waiting for the location to be announced but it never was, and people complained about it on the Meetup Comments.


Issue III: AssetRush
Jenny is the Bytecoin community manager as well as CCO of AssetRush (https://assetrush.com/), a new venture mainly providing token promotion services. When skimming their webpage, you will notice that they seem to have 7 team members, Jenny included. Just a little more than a month ago, I posted the following reply on BCT (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34881099#msg34881099). You will notice an investigation of the AssetRush team started back then, and interestingly, the full team numbered closer to 20 — all with different pictures of the same distinct photo style. This means most of the team members have been taken off the webpage since then. Only 5 of the now 7 team members were on the earlier team.

What proof is there to this claim of almost 20 team members? You can see in the BCT post that I link to Twitter users no longer found on the AssetRush team list. Other BCT users reply to that post after also reviewing the team webpage, acting as verification that all those disappearing team members were in fact on the AssetRush webpage earlier. It is still possible to manually look at all earlier team members since the webpage still hosts their pictures in the background. Just change the number in this link string and you will see at least 16 different team members (I saved all pictures): https://assetrush.com/img/teamFaces_6.png

Out of the 20 or so people, only 4 had Twitter accounts. They were all created between 4–12 April 2018. Twitter is quite common these days, so one might wonder why not a single person out of a qualified team of 20 had a personal twitter account prior to their AssetRush venture. Twitter seems to archive some user stats, including creation dates, so by this method, 4–12th April was confirmed. Hovering over users’ profiles shows creation date as well.

Back in April, I continued the investigation of AssetRush team members by checking their LinkedIn profiles, which only 5 of them had. Jenny has the oldest LinkedIn account it seems. Her feed activity started in July 2017. This is in line with the birth of the BCN_official Reddit user as well as the re-activation of the then dormant bytecoin_bcn Twitter account. CEO David Booker’s first activity was two months ago so we can assume he joined LinkedIn then. Yet he has over a 1000 followers — something many active networkers out there fail to achieve. He is also using Russian emoticons, which seems weird for someone with that name. David Petrachini’s feed activity started two months ago as well. Yet he had over 1300 followers. The account is now even terminated, possibly because I pointed these discrepancies out in April. David’s Twitter account is still active, but unfollowed Russian news outlets immediately after I pointed this fact out. Martina Sarto’s feed started a few weeks after David’s. She had 658 followers last time I checked. Now her account is terminated. Jenn Bruney seemed to have joined LinkedIn just after Martina but still managed to get 726 followers before terminating her account. These high amounts of followers obtained so quickly are obviously bought, and any LinkedIn veteran can confirm that. The account shut-downs are probably part of some cover-up of the whole Bytecoin/AssetRush mess. It must be a loss for them as the administration of all accounts, and the work put down to make them look and seem normal, is lost.  David, Martina and Jenn all tweeted in a way that confirmed my suspicion that English is not at all their native language.

Try the links yourself:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-petrachini/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martina-sarto/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-bruney/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennygoldberg/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/booker-david/


Questions that demand answers:

• How does the Bytecoin team explain all the sockpuppets present in the BCT ANN thread, many tied even to the OP DStrange? You have never addressed this issue since I mapped all of them.
• Can Jenny once and for all admit that 'Jenny Goldberg' is a pseudonym, now when we see through the massive maskirovka undertakings taken on Twitter, LinkedIn, meetup.com etc.?
• Can Jenny elaborate on the Bytecoin meetup in Barcelona and why it seems to have been faked?
• Can Jenny once and for all come clear with the purpose of AssetRush, why she faked all those team members, and if the Bytecoin team is involved in that as well?

What can you do?
If you sit on relevant information about Bytecoin and AssetRush not brought up in this thread, please post it here. If the information is sensitive due to anonymity preferences, you may contact me at bdratings@protonmail.com and I will respect your wish to privacy.

If you have contacts in relevant media outlets, please forward this information. I am certain the story is good enough to drive traffic.


Endnote
Most of the above claims are laid out in two of my previous articles. For detailed proof with links and other references, go to them.
https://medium.com/@bdratings/bytecoin-puppets-among-us-7381db79c468
https://medium.com/@bdratings/an-update-on-the-bytecoin-farce-3ae34ce45ba8

,or check the very end of this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34853259#msg34853259

I sincerely admire your enthusiasm in getting to the roots of all issues addressed. I do hope more persons become aware of the irregularities and unscrupulousness exhibited by the team. I am humbled by the quality of your research.

[rickgejr]

Wow. Best work I've seen in recent years to expose Bytecoin's continued fraud.

[BDRatings]

Just a couple of updates that have been posted elsewhere and is not represented in this thread:

* The twitter feeds of a couple of Jenny's fake Assetrush colleagues have fallen silent after being exposed.

https://twitter.com/martina_sarto
https://twitter.com/jennbruney

* Jenny's Assetrush CEO David Booker is still active on LinkedIn, even after I called him out on using Russian emoticons on reddit.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/booker-david/detail/recent-activity/
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/88sjm6/dating_apps_do_work/dwmyxfz/
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/88soev/very_strict_policy_at_my_local_market/dwmz1lz/
https://www.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/88r9ed/got_him_good/dwmxdmc/

* David "the Italian" Petrachini recently announced an Assetrush partnership with Kraken. The tweet is 'liked' by Jenny. Kraken later denied this completely.

https://twitter.com/DavidPetrachini/status/1034422725035663360
https://twitter.com/krakensupport/status/1050082666941440001

* Jenny, feeling the heat, steps down as Assetrush CCO. The Assetrush - Bytecoin ties are now almost completely swept under the carpet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BytecoinBCN/comments/9l9yzw/has_jenny_fired/


Will try to keep the thread updated from here on. Bytecoin just got delisted from Binance and OKEx and the community is not happy about it. We might se some attempt from the team to pivot from the negative and announce some new feature or partnership. A change of consensus mechanism to PoS for example...

[Hueristic]

Just a couple of updates that have been posted elsewhere and is not represented in this thread:

* The twitter feeds of a couple of Jenny's fake Assetrush colleagues have fallen silent after being exposed.

https://twitter.com/martina_sarto
https://twitter.com/jennbruney

* Jenny's Assetrush CEO David Booker is still active on LinkedIn, even after I called him out on using Russian emoticons on reddit.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/booker-david/detail/recent-activity/
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/88sjm6/dating_apps_do_work/dwmyxfz/
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/88soev/very_strict_policy_at_my_local_market/dwmz1lz/
https://www.reddit.com/r/BikiniBottomTwitter/comments/88r9ed/got_him_good/dwmxdmc/

* David "the Italian" Petrachini recently announced an Assetrush partnership with Kraken. The tweet is 'liked' by Jenny. Kraken later denied this completely.

https://twitter.com/DavidPetrachini/status/1034422725035663360
https://twitter.com/krakensupport/status/1050082666941440001

* Jenny, feeling the heat, steps down as Assetrush CCO. The Assetrush - Bytecoin ties are now almost completely swept under the carpet.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BytecoinBCN/comments/9l9yzw/has_jenny_fired/


Will try to keep the thread updated from here on. Bytecoin just got delisted from Binance and OKEx and the community is not happy about it. We might se some attempt from the team to pivot from the negative and announce some new feature or partnership. A change of consensus mechanism to PoS for example...

Great work as usual.

[BDRatings]

May I present 'Anastasia Friedman', former employee at AssetRush. She was recently removed from the assetrush.com team-page.
https://imgur.com/MWaYOWs

Notice the exact same photo style for the remaining team:
https://assetrush.com/about

Anastasia is still listed under AssetRush on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrentCompany=%5B%2218480880%22%5D

And now for the fun part - here is Małgosia Bela, Polish fashion model:
https://www.styledumonde.com/2017/11/paris-ss-2018-street-style-malgosia-bela/

[owlcatz]

May I present 'Anastasia Friedman', former employee at AssetRush. She was recently removed from the assetrush.com team-page.
https://imgur.com/MWaYOWs

Notice the exact same photo style for the remaining team:
https://assetrush.com/about

Anastasia is still listed under AssetRush on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrentCompany=%5B%2218480880%22%5D

And now for the fun part - here is Małgosia Bela, Polish fashion model:
https://www.styledumonde.com/2017/11/paris-ss-2018-street-style-malgosia-bela/

Holy shit, how long did it take to find that image? That's definitely her..... or... not her I should say!

[BDRatings]

Actually not that long once I started trying reverse image search on Yandex, the Russian search engine. Got annoyed at these scammers today when they posted a piece on how to detect liars and imitators: https://twitter.com/assetrush_tweet/status/1059862012816175104

[BDRatings]

More creativity.

They inverted the image of this guy - a real person:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXyPlTs_8j93XWEUzDGYTcw/about

AssetRush pic of fake team member:
https://imgur.com/53KhTp5

[EmmanCryp]

Seriously I was very surprised when I saw the viral news of bytecoin project being alleged with scam accusations. The binance and okex delisting were giving the signals that something bad is about to happen. I hope people didn't lose much.

[BDRatings]

An old team picture, where Ana Friedman is still included:
https://imgur.com/mEbVbkZ

My guess is the scammers will remove her from AssetRush on LinkedIn quite soon. Or even remove her profile altogether.

[BDRatings]

An American photographer:
https://scottlawrencephoto.com/headshots-for-business-landing/

AssetRush employee, inverted:
https://imgur.com/LEmcB70

[Hueristic]

Actually not that long once I started trying reverse image search on Yandex, the Russian search engine. Got annoyed at these scammers today when they posted a piece on how to detect liars and imitators: https://twitter.com/assetrush_tweet/status/1059862012816175104

God I love the Ironic!

[BDRatings]

Nick Fish from American Atheists:
https://www.atheists.org/people/nick-fish/

AssetRush hardworking employee:
https://imgur.com/Fu9kOQM

[Hueristic]

Nick Fish from American Atheists:
https://www.atheists.org/people/nick-fish/

AssetRush hardworking employee:
https://imgur.com/Fu9kOQM

Should get in touch with these people so they can shutdown AssetRush sites. Maybe they can get AsstRush assets seized? I have no clue if there are any seizable assets.

[dumplingsandsushi]

This is some terrific research.  It's rare to have such quality posts nowadays.

Any coin that just suddenly jumps into the top 100 I am suspicious of.
So coins like verge, tron, and of course, bytecoin I instantly don't trust.
Especially if for years it had no value and no market penetration, there is obvious manipulation going on.

Bytecoin was an interesting one because of the binance listing.
Typically, that is a sign it is legitimate so I think a lot of people flocked to it.
But, now, lo and behold, it got delisted not only there, but on other exchanges as well.

On top of all of this suspicious activity, there is the simple question of: is Bytecoin even necessary?
There are so many privacy coins, with Monero being the obvious best choice.

[hellyah070]

Claim
Bytecoin is run by a highly disingenuous team, whose goal is most probably to maximize own gains by tricking people like you to buy the BCN token. Bytecoin can be classified as scam, not in the liberal interpretation often thrown around here, but in the classical sense.

Who am I and why am I investigating Bytecoin?
I am a fellow cryptocurrency enthusiast who in late 2017, early 2018 decided to start up a free cryptocurrency ratings agency, BD Ratings, to compete with Weiss Ratings (I guess you remember their entrance in the space). The coin selection process is random, drawn from Bitcoin block nounces. When finally block # 511650 hit, the two last digits of the nounce 207761428 selected the coin that by marketcap was number 29 on coinmarketcap.com. By that time, that happened to be Bytecoin. So this is not a targeted hit piece; I dived in to Bytecoin with an open mind just as I had done with other coins prior to this rating. I profit absolutely nothing by bashing Bytecoin. Neither do I profit anything from potential increased traffic to my coin ratings.

My membership status on bitcointalk.org is Newbie, so I can't provide pictures in this thread right now. I do however keep a number of printscreens as proof should they be required later. And finally, I decided to post this as a new thread because of the relatively low traction it has gotten elsewhere. No cryptocurrency newspaper I contacted has shown an interest in the findings. With this thread, I hope to change that as the proof of wrongdoing is massive. The inconsistencies are provided in separate "issues", all independent of each other. This means that the Bytecoin team ought to refute every single issue, and not come with a sweeping rebuttal. Let's hold them accountable.

What these claims does not include
In 2014, rethink-your-strategy turned the spotlight to multiple serious discrepancies in the official Bytecoin issuance story. The Bytecoin team's claim of a chain stretching back to 2012 seemed suddenly dubious. Read up on that historical thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0) as well if you like, it is one of the best out there. My investigation starts where that thread ended. The main overlapping issue seems to be the evidence provided of the use of sockpuppets, but other than that I provide new findings.

Intro
Bytecoin was announced on the 12th of March 2014 by user DStrange on bitcointalk.org (BCT). The coin was based on the new, privacy focused CryptoNote technology, thus using the memory-bound CryptoNight consensus algorithm that was quite resistant to ASIC’s back then. DStrange was not a developer; he appears to have stumbled upon Bytecoin when trying to mine a useless Bitcoin clone with the same name. He quickly put on the Bytecoin cloak and started handing out free coins.

Issue I: Early sockpuppets

(Note: for links and proof references, go to the Medium articles provided at the end of this post)

First to reply to DStrange’s post was user Lamalicious, hailing the project as looking like Satoshi’s second venture. Lamalicious registered on BCT on the 23rd of December 2013, the exact same date as DStrange. Another early poster in the thread, EndlessWin, also registered on the 23rd. Another user, Rias, appeared in the Bytecoin thread and showed great interest in the project. Rias wrote his first post on BCT on 20th of Jan 2014. So did the user Danni. DStrange first wrote something on BCT on the 21st of Jan 2014. EndlessWin created his first post on the 21st as well. Lamalicious created his first BCT post on the 22nd of Jan 2014, as did user Hexah. Cheesus first posted on BCT on the 23rd. Hexah, Cheesus and Danni registered their accounts with minutes apart.

And this is where it gets stranger. From the 5th of February to the 5th of March that year, all seven of these users go completely dark. Just before the 5th of February, and just after the 5th of March, two weird things happened as well. All seven are posting on the BCT “Beginners & Help” section, welcoming newcomers. DStrange even welcomes Rias in person. Danni interacts with DStrange in another thread about favorite movies. In one thread, Rias welcomes one person two separate times, probably forgetting to switch logged in account. Hexah is in that same thread saying hello as well. Note that this is one week before DStrange gets the Bytecoin announcement thread going, so they are not supposed to have met yet.

The second weird thing is that the seven supposedly independent users all show an interest in Putin and the invasion of Ukraine that occurred by this time. So to spell it out clearly, seven users that started writing on BCT at more or less the exact same time (many of which registered on the same day even), went dormant for one month, activated at the exact same time to post in the welcome-section of BCT as well as about the Crimea conflict, to finally rally under the Bytecoin flag later that March. rethink-your-strategy also started mapping this, but not to the full extent as he focused on other issues.

A couple of pages in, on 11th of April and onward, user Keeminakar ignites the rumor that Satoshi is involved with Bytecoin. FasterStronger joins the discussion, praising the coin. MadridReal perpetuates the Satoshi rumor. Qwerty777, and Agent99 add to the discussion as well. They are all registered on the dates 20th, 21st or 22nd of March 2014. They are all likely Russian/Ukrainian (notice the use of Russian emoticons where semicolon is omitted due to standard keyboard layout/preferences, as well as the interest in Russian translations, talk of Russian relatives etc.). All five of these users stop posting altogether on the 14th, 15th and 28th of September 2014. Then they are dormant for almost 4 years, when out of nowhere, four of them start posting again in February 2018, seemingly sold to new owners considering the change of writing style.

In June that same year, rethink-your-strategy starts uncovering discrepancies in the CryptoNote web page and whitepaper. He quickly also confirms that a certain BCT user that performed detailed blockchain analysis on the Bytecoin chain to prove its legitimacy, was actually a bought account. This is when more sockpuppets come forward to defend Bytecoin. madzooka is the first one, and a quick user analysis reveals a common pattern. madzooka’s earlier posts complain about missing some Bitcoin meet-up in Cleveland, USA. He also writes that he is interested in a certain California meet-up. What is evident is that English is not his first language, and a few posts later — there they are — the Russian emoticons. He also discussed the Ukrainian crisis prior to Bytecoin involvement, and he wrote in the newbie section of BCT, exactly according to pattern. User DNScode repeats the operation; defending Bytecoin against rethink-your-strategy’s accusations, while having earlier written in the newbie section, discussed the Ukraine conflict, and lastly used Russian emoticons. His account was registered on the 19th of March 2014, just in line with the other sockpuppets created on the 20th, 21st and 22nd. greenteanosugar chimes in. This user is registered 19th of March, then goes silent on 15th of September like most of the others. GreedyBoy, registered on the 20th of March, fiercely defends Bytecoin short thereafter. He gives away his background by Russian emoticons, the goes dark September 13th 2014 before re-appearing 4 years later with what seems to be a new account owner. Other probable sockpuppets are AtomicDoge, werrindor, David1978, Rockefeller, Meggie, JJKirsch, Monkeyseemonkeydo, TonyZX, Stanford, jolipenria, JPSelzer.

Issue II: Jenny Goldberg
On the 25th of July 2017, new BCT user BCN_official announces that she, Jenny Goldberg, is the new Bytecoin community manager. She confirms that old Bytecoin developers are still involved with the project, and that there is a strong roadmap going forward. From that point in time, she has been extremely active on the Bytecoin Reddit, Twitter and BCT. The problem here is, to no ones surprise, that Jenny Goldberg uses Russian emoticons (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=512747.msg21724861#msg21724861). It is not evidence of connection to the 2014 sockpuppets, but it sure as hell must be uncommon to be named Jenny Goldberg as a Russian. And Jenny is listed on the official bytecoin.org webpage.

What may be the only published audio recording of a Bytecoin team member, this Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqLWFcSUlwo) confirms a few things earlier suspected. English is not Jenny’s native language, listen for yourself. The sound also indicates that some kind of voice changer was applied.

Applying Jenny’s twitter account to the Twitter Archiving Project data capture yields the following result:

"translator_type":"none","protected":false,"verified":false,"followers_count":123,"friends_count":47,"listed_count":1,"favourites_count":0,"statuses_count":6,"created_at":"Tue Apr 10 09:28:22 +0000 2018","utc_offset":null,"time_zone":null,"geo_enabled":false,"lang":"ru"

The last word proves that Jenny used a computer with Russian language settings while setting up her account, or that she has such language settings right now. I verified the validity of this method by checking multiple Swedish Twitter accounts and they all yielded “lang”: “sv”.

Jenny Goldberg claims as you may know to reside in or around Barcelona. It came as no surprise then when I found a Barcelona crypto meetup group where the Bytecoin logo is utilized and where a Jenny G is admin. The group with its 175 members have 1 past meetup with 57 attendees. Looking at a couple of comments for this meetup, we find:

It is possible that anyone doesn’t know the location? It is a fake meetup?! I already asked on telegram and I received no answer! What a pity! - Theresa T

60 ppl confirmed and no one apart from us is asking about the location :/ so strange.. Idk maybe the info is somewhere else, in Telegram for example? I don't have an account so haven't check it. Anyway, given the circumstances I won't go >.< - Mariona

The meetup shows indeed no location at all. Wanting to double check, I contacted another confirmed attendee by mail. His answer: Hello, I believe it did not happen. I was waiting for the location to be announced but it never was, and people complained about it on the Meetup Comments.


Issue III: AssetRush
Jenny is the Bytecoin community manager as well as CCO of AssetRush (https://assetrush.com/), a new venture mainly providing token promotion services. When skimming their webpage, you will notice that they seem to have 7 team members, Jenny included. Just a little more than a month ago, I posted the following reply on BCT (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34881099#msg34881099). You will notice an investigation of the AssetRush team started back then, and interestingly, the full team numbered closer to 20 — all with different pictures of the same distinct photo style. This means most of the team members have been taken off the webpage since then. Only 5 of the now 7 team members were on the earlier team.

What proof is there to this claim of almost 20 team members? You can see in the BCT post that I link to Twitter users no longer found on the AssetRush team list. Other BCT users reply to that post after also reviewing the team webpage, acting as verification that all those disappearing team members were in fact on the AssetRush webpage earlier. It is still possible to manually look at all earlier team members since the webpage still hosts their pictures in the background. Just change the number in this link string and you will see at least 16 different team members (I saved all pictures): https://assetrush.com/img/teamFaces_6.png

Out of the 20 or so people, only 4 had Twitter accounts. They were all created between 4–12 April 2018. Twitter is quite common these days, so one might wonder why not a single person out of a qualified team of 20 had a personal twitter account prior to their AssetRush venture. Twitter seems to archive some user stats, including creation dates, so by this method, 4–12th April was confirmed. Hovering over users’ profiles shows creation date as well.

Back in April, I continued the investigation of AssetRush team members by checking their LinkedIn profiles, which only 5 of them had. Jenny has the oldest LinkedIn account it seems. Her feed activity started in July 2017. This is in line with the birth of the BCN_official Reddit user as well as the re-activation of the then dormant bytecoin_bcn Twitter account. CEO David Booker’s first activity was two months ago so we can assume he joined LinkedIn then. Yet he has over a 1000 followers — something many active networkers out there fail to achieve. He is also using Russian emoticons, which seems weird for someone with that name. David Petrachini’s feed activity started two months ago as well. Yet he had over 1300 followers. The account is now even terminated, possibly because I pointed these discrepancies out in April. David’s Twitter account is still active, but unfollowed Russian news outlets immediately after I pointed this fact out. Martina Sarto’s feed started a few weeks after David’s. She had 658 followers last time I checked. Now her account is terminated. Jenn Bruney seemed to have joined LinkedIn just after Martina but still managed to get 726 followers before terminating her account. These high amounts of followers obtained so quickly are obviously bought, and any LinkedIn veteran can confirm that. The account shut-downs are probably part of some cover-up of the whole Bytecoin/AssetRush mess. It must be a loss for them as the administration of all accounts, and the work put down to make them look and seem normal, is lost.  David, Martina and Jenn all tweeted in a way that confirmed my suspicion that English is not at all their native language.

Try the links yourself:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-petrachini/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martina-sarto/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenn-bruney/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennygoldberg/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/booker-david/


Questions that demand answers:

• How does the Bytecoin team explain all the sockpuppets present in the BCT ANN thread, many tied even to the OP DStrange? You have never addressed this issue since I mapped all of them.
• Can Jenny once and for all admit that 'Jenny Goldberg' is a pseudonym, now when we see through the massive maskirovka undertakings taken on Twitter, LinkedIn, meetup.com etc.?
• Can Jenny elaborate on the Bytecoin meetup in Barcelona and why it seems to have been faked?
• Can Jenny once and for all come clear with the purpose of AssetRush, why she faked all those team members, and if the Bytecoin team is involved in that as well?

What can you do?
If you sit on relevant information about Bytecoin and AssetRush not brought up in this thread, please post it here. If the information is sensitive due to anonymity preferences, you may contact me at bdratings@protonmail.com and I will respect your wish to privacy.

If you have contacts in relevant media outlets, please forward this information. I am certain the story is good enough to drive traffic.


Endnote
Most of the above claims are laid out in two of my previous articles. For detailed proof with links and other references, go to them.
https://medium.com/@bdratings/bytecoin-puppets-among-us-7381db79c468
https://medium.com/@bdratings/an-update-on-the-bytecoin-farce-3ae34ce45ba8

,or check the very end of this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.msg34853259#msg34853259

Wow this is very detailed. Everyone should be aware of this. The only thing I suggest is to post it on the scam accusations section in order to be more effective when people sees it. Good job on creating this thread.

[BDRatings]

Wow this is very detailed. Everyone should be aware of this. The only thing I suggest is to post it on the scam accusations section in order to be more effective when people sees it. Good job on creating this thread.

Good point. I will try to get a moderator to move the thread to over there.

[BDRatings]

Nick Fish from American Atheists:
https://www.atheists.org/people/nick-fish/

AssetRush hardworking employee:
https://imgur.com/Fu9kOQM

Should get in touch with these people so they can shutdown AssetRush sites. Maybe they can get AsstRush assets seized? I have no clue if there are any seizable assets.

I wonder if the company is even registered. Anyone know if there are any good databases? If there is something tangible about AssetRush, it may be worth reporting.

[BDRatings]

My thread on the Bytecoin subreddit was just deleted. First time they do that. Doesn't matter, we got them.

Also, Jenny sent the following pm to me afterwards:

Hi there,

I would like to clarify the situation with AssetRush, in order to end up with such questions. As you may have noticed, I left AssetRush, as I haven’t had enough time to participate there. I really find it great that you monitor all the activity related to me, however, I would like to state that I’m no longer work in AssetRush.

Thanks for following both of the projects, and feel free to reach me out here or in telegram @BCN_official

She is the co-founder. She is responsible for the fraudulent activities over there as they occurred way _before_ she quit AssetRush.

[Invest-or]

I just don´t see how any of the issues here are an issue at all. All I know is that bytecoin works, is listed, has a web wallet, is mineable and private. The team is looking for profit? F*unking yeah of course! Are they who they say? Who cares, is privacy!

[Febo]

Seriously I was very surprised when I saw the viral news of bytecoin project being alleged with scam accusations. The binance and okex delisting were giving the signals that something bad is about to happen. I hope people didn't lose much.

Come on. If you google Bytecoin you know that it was a scam from 2014. I dont understand people really. How hard is to use search on this forum or on reddit or on google.  It is actual amazing i come write this here. I stopped writing about them last 2 years since I assume everyone already know.

[KaozTiposta]

Seriously I was very surprised when I saw the viral news of bytecoin project being alleged with scam accusations. The binance and okex delisting were giving the signals that something bad is about to happen. I hope people didn't lose much.

Come on. If you google Bytecoin you know that it was a scam from 2014. I dont understand people really. How hard is to use search on this forum or on reddit or on google.  It is actual amazing i come write this here. I stopped writing about them last 2 years since I assume everyone already know.

At least he found their connection to another company.
BDRatings, do you do such deep investigations about other coins?

[System96]

Excellent work man, this shit is getting sketchier by the day.

I knew Jenny was a fraud, you should join the Bytecoin telegram chat, it would be neat talk to you about all this in the Bytecoin chat

[BDRatings]

Seriously I was very surprised when I saw the viral news of bytecoin project being alleged with scam accusations. The binance and okex delisting were giving the signals that something bad is about to happen. I hope people didn't lose much.

Come on. If you google Bytecoin you know that it was a scam from 2014. I dont understand people really. How hard is to use search on this forum or on reddit or on google.  It is actual amazing i come write this here. I stopped writing about them last 2 years since I assume everyone already know.

At least he found their connection to another company.
BDRatings, do you do such deep investigations about other coins?

I try to investigate all the coins that I rate. So far, the only other scam I have rated is Pura.
https://www.bdratings.org/l/pura-a-pyramid-of-lies/

More common is that a coin just has bad fundamentals, rather than being a pure scam.

[Lisa110386]

Thank you for this post. You really did a great job. I wanted to buy some bytecoin, as the price seems very low. But I decided to find some information about this project, and fortunately I saw this thread. How long have you been watching the team of bytecoin? Have they always spent so little time communicating with the community? I looked at the telegram chat there's only admins, team members have not contacted.

[System96]

Thank you for this post. You really did a great job. I wanted to buy some bytecoin, as the price seems very low. But I decided to find some information about this project, and fortunately I saw this thread. How long have you been watching the team of bytecoin? Have they always spent so little time communicating with the community? I looked at the telegram chat there's only admins, team members have not contacted.

Devs have never directly contacted community admins, but when "Jenny" was sorta present in the chat, we would hear from her at least once every couple of days. Now though, they seemingly have completely given up on interacting with the community

[Lisa110386]

Thank you for this post. You really did a great job. I wanted to buy some bytecoin, as the price seems very low. But I decided to find some information about this project, and fortunately I saw this thread. How long have you been watching the team of bytecoin? Have they always spent so little time communicating with the community? I looked at the telegram chat there's only admins, team members have not contacted.

Devs have never directly contacted community admins, but when "Jenny" was sorta present in the chat, we would hear from her at least once every couple of days. Now though, they seemingly have completely given up on interacting with the community

Thanks for the answer, I understand. I just want to know more about this coin. I see that yesterday was written a new post in Reddit, in it is discussed listing on exchange Kraken. The user BCN_official, this is Jenny?

[System96]

Thank you for this post. You really did a great job. I wanted to buy some bytecoin, as the price seems very low. But I decided to find some information about this project, and fortunately I saw this thread. How long have you been watching the team of bytecoin? Have they always spent so little time communicating with the community? I looked at the telegram chat there's only admins, team members have not contacted.

Devs have never directly contacted community admins, but when "Jenny" was sorta present in the chat, we would hear from her at least once every couple of days. Now though, they seemingly have completely given up on interacting with the community

Thanks for the answer, I understand. I just want to know more about this coin. I see that yesterday was written a new post in Reddit, in it is discussed listing on exchange Kraken. The user BCN_official, this is Jenny?

Yeah Jenny is the one that controls the u/BCN_Official account, she also controls @BCN_Official on telegram. What's odd is they post on reddit quite often, but literally haven't been in the chat since a couple weeks or more. And they haven't banned me or removed me off the site yet...it's literally been a couple months lmao

[mrknc]

While I commend the OP for his work on uncovering this stuff, my question is: where is an actual scam in all of this? Seems to me the allegations are pretty much shilling on social media under aliases? Certainly, such things do not add trustworthiness to whoever is running bytecoin, but this does not constitutes scamming in my book. There are certainly many questions regarding bytecoin and what transpired this year alone, so this seems pretty minor compared to everything else.

[BDRatings]

While I commend the OP for his work on uncovering this stuff, my question is: where is an actual scam in all of this? Seems to me the allegations are pretty much shilling on social media under aliases? Certainly, such things do not add trustworthiness to whoever is running bytecoin, but this does not constitutes scamming in my book. There are certainly many questions regarding bytecoin and what transpired this year alone, so this seems pretty minor compared to everything else.

Let's try to set the bar a little higher. The definition of a scam is - a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation. They engage in sockpuppetry and founding of a ghost company with stolen pictures for it's employees. They do not do this for fun, but to obtain other peoples' money in one way or another.

[System96]

While I commend the OP for his work on uncovering this stuff, my question is: where is an actual scam in all of this? Seems to me the allegations are pretty much shilling on social media under aliases? Certainly, such things do not add trustworthiness to whoever is running bytecoin, but this does not constitutes scamming in my book. There are certainly many questions regarding bytecoin and what transpired this year alone, so this seems pretty minor compared to everything else.

They engage in sockpuppetry and founding of a ghost company with stolen pictures for it's employees.

The premise is an anonymous, unregulated, decentralized, egalitarian technology for anyone in the world to send value to anyone else, instantly and without fees, taxation, prejudice, censorship, or undue violations of privacy.

When a person sends value, nobody except that person and the recipient have a right to that information. Governments do not like it, but value has become information.

And wait... obtaining other people's money is bad? Isn't that like, the whole thing everyone is trying to do all day, every day?

I dont see how this has anything to do with the topic at hand

While I commend the OP for his work on uncovering this stuff, my question is: where is an actual scam in all of this? Seems to me the allegations are pretty much shilling on social media under aliases? Certainly, such things do not add trustworthiness to whoever is running bytecoin, but this does not constitutes scamming in my book. There are certainly many questions regarding Bytecoin and what transpired this year alone, so this seems pretty minor compared to everything else.

I honestly don't think anything they have done currently makes Bytecoin a scam, however, their actions are a lot more than shady and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more begins to come out in the future. Regardless of scam or not, before you take a foot into Bytecoin territory, ponder for a while what exactly you are getting into.

[mrknc]

Look, I don't disagree, a lot of stuff around bytecoin is extremely shady. However, given premine in bytecoin, it's no surprise they are trying to protect their identities.

More importantly, if you are doing work on behalf of community, transparency, etc, you should be a more careful in your definitions, it doesn't serve anybody when accusations are stretched beyond facts.

[Febo]

Look, I don't disagree, a lot of stuff around bytecoin is extremely shady. However, given premine in bytecoin, it's no surprise they are trying to protect their identities.

More importantly, if you are doing work on behalf of community, transparency, etc, you should be a more careful in your definitions, it doesn't serve anybody when accusations are stretched beyond facts.

Man you seems to not understand. They come here in 2014 and announced the coin. And only after some time it was found out that 80% of coins was mined in last 2 years. They claimed that it launched in 2014 and not 2012. IT was a planed scam. This is only reason thankful for today launched Bitmonero. If bytecoin scammers would normally launch bytecoin in 2012 and announced it in advance would be no need for Monero at all.

[Hueristic]

I honestly don't think anything they have done currently makes Bytecoin a scam, however, their actions are a lot more than shady and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more begins to come out in the future. Regardless of scam or not, before you take a foot into Bytecoin territory, ponder for a while what exactly you are getting into.

Read this thread

   
Blowing the lid off the CryptoNote/Bytecoin scam (with the exception of Monero)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0

And if you think bytecoin is not a scam after that then tell me so I can put you on ignore along with the other morons.

Look, I don't disagree, a lot of stuff around bytecoin is extremely shady. However, given premine in bytecoin, it's no surprise they are trying to protect their identities.

More importantly, if you are doing work on behalf of community, transparency, etc, you should be a more careful in your definitions, it doesn't serve anybody when accusations are stretched beyond facts.

Man you seems to not understand. They come here in 2014 and announced the coin. And only after some time it was found out that 80% of coins was mined in last 2 years. They claimed that it launched in 2014 and not 2012. IT was a planed scam. This is only reason thankful for today launched Bitmonero. If bytecoin scammers would normally launch bytecoin in 2012 and announced it in advance would be no need for Monero at all.

This is correct.

[mrknc]

Look, I don't disagree, a lot of stuff around bytecoin is extremely shady. However, given premine in bytecoin, it's no surprise they are trying to protect their identities.

More importantly, if you are doing work on behalf of community, transparency, etc, you should be a more careful in your definitions, it doesn't serve anybody when accusations are stretched beyond facts.

Man you seems to not understand. They come here in 2014 and announced the coin. And only after some time it was found out that 80% of coins was mined in last 2 years. They claimed that it launched in 2014 and not 2012. IT was a planed scam. This is only reason thankful for today launched Bitmonero. If bytecoin scammers would normally launch bytecoin in 2012 and announced it in advance would be no need for Monero at all.

I am quite aware of that. Maybe I'm not making my point clearly. My objections were related to the work BDRatings was doing and definitions he chose, not the history of bytecoin.

[System96]

I honestly don't think anything they have done currently makes Bytecoin a scam, however, their actions are a lot more than shady and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more begins to come out in the future. Regardless of scam or not, before you take a foot into Bytecoin territory, ponder for a while what exactly you are getting into.

Read this thread

   
Blowing the lid off the CryptoNote/Bytecoin scam (with the exception of Monero)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0

And if you think bytecoin is not a scam after that then tell me so I can put you on ignore along with the other morons.

Look, I don't disagree, a lot of stuff around bytecoin is extremely shady. However, given premine in bytecoin, it's no surprise they are trying to protect their identities.

More importantly, if you are doing work on behalf of community, transparency, etc, you should be a more careful in your definitions, it doesn't serve anybody when accusations are stretched beyond facts.

Man you seems to not understand. They come here in 2014 and announced the coin. And only after some time it was found out that 80% of coins was mined in last 2 years. They claimed that it launched in 2014 and not 2012. IT was a planed scam. This is only reason thankful for today launched Bitmonero. If bytecoin scammers would normally launch bytecoin in 2012 and announced it in advance would be no need for Monero at all.

This is correct.

No need to be overly defensive man, I have called out Bytecoin's bullshit just as much as you do. The reason why I don't like to call Bytecoin a scam outright is because there isn't a lot of hard proof on these things. That thread mentions no proof whatsoever, and while I don't doubt at all that the premine happened and more (i.e binance pump), there just isn't any proof. The best way to educate people about Bytecoin I feel is to just tell the information at hand and let people come to their own conclusions about the subject. Thats just my two cents though

[Hueristic]

I honestly don't think anything they have done currently makes Bytecoin a scam, however, their actions are a lot more than shady and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more begins to come out in the future. Regardless of scam or not, before you take a foot into Bytecoin territory, ponder for a while what exactly you are getting into.

Read this thread

   
Blowing the lid off the CryptoNote/Bytecoin scam (with the exception of Monero)
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0

And if you think bytecoin is not a scam after that then tell me so I can put you on ignore along with the other morons.

Look, I don't disagree, a lot of stuff around bytecoin is extremely shady. However, given premine in bytecoin, it's no surprise they are trying to protect their identities.

More importantly, if you are doing work on behalf of community, transparency, etc, you should be a more careful in your definitions, it doesn't serve anybody when accusations are stretched beyond facts.

Man you seems to not understand. They come here in 2014 and announced the coin. And only after some time it was found out that 80% of coins was mined in last 2 years. They claimed that it launched in 2014 and not 2012. IT was a planed scam. This is only reason thankful for today launched Bitmonero. If bytecoin scammers would normally launch bytecoin in 2012 and announced it in advance would be no need for Monero at all.

This is correct.

No need to be overly defensive man, I have called out Bytecoin's bullshit just as much as you do. The reason why I don't like to call Bytecoin a scam outright is because there isn't a lot of hard proof on these things. That thread mentions no proof whatsoever, and while I don't doubt at all that the premine happened and more (i.e binance pump), there just isn't any proof. The best way to educate people about Bytecoin I feel is to just tell the information at hand and let people come to their own conclusions about the subject. Thats just my two cents though

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!!  Either your a moron or a scammer.

The PROOF is the fact they pre mined 80% of the coin and lied that it was mined for 2 previous years. IT IS A PRE MINE SCAM> Get that through your dumb ass skulll.

Is that defensive enough for you you tard?

[BDRatings]

Look, I don't disagree, a lot of stuff around bytecoin is extremely shady. However, given premine in bytecoin, it's no surprise they are trying to protect their identities.

More importantly, if you are doing work on behalf of community, transparency, etc, you should be a more careful in your definitions, it doesn't serve anybody when accusations are stretched beyond facts.

Man you seems to not understand. They come here in 2014 and announced the coin. And only after some time it was found out that 80% of coins was mined in last 2 years. They claimed that it launched in 2014 and not 2012. IT was a planed scam. This is only reason thankful for today launched Bitmonero. If bytecoin scammers would normally launch bytecoin in 2012 and announced it in advance would be no need for Monero at all.

I am quite aware of that. Maybe I'm not making my point clearly. My objections were related to the work BDRatings was doing and definitions he chose, not the history of bytecoin.

We have different definitions then. There are just too many separate serious issues with this project for it to escape this definition. Many oldtimers called it a scam even before I busted the whole AssetRush thing. Ask yourself why Jenny/BCN_official is still working for Bytecoin after all this and why no anonymous BCN dev have demanded an explanation from her.

[mrknc]

BDRatings, it's fine, I understand your point. I would just rather have more facts and less judgements and name-calling, like the loudmouth dice-peddler above.

[Hueristic]

BDRatings, it's fine, I understand your point. I would just rather have more facts and less judgements and name-calling, like the loudmouth dice-peddler above.

Haha you fucking twat, you try to protect scum sucking scammers that steal from n00bs but whine about my making peanuts off of my years of helping those n00bs.
'
You really are a piece of shit.

And FYI, if my name is on a gambling site you can bet your last dollar it is legit. I spent 6 months vetting sites before I found one that was worthy of my endorsement and this is the only sig I have ever worn for advertisement.

BTW nimrod you can turn sigs and avys off in the CP if you can find it.

[KaozTiposta]

We have different definitions then. There are just too many separate serious issues with this project for it to escape this definition. Many oldtimers called it a scam even before I busted the whole AssetRush thing. Ask yourself why Jenny/BCN_official is still working for Bytecoin after all this and why no anonymous BCN dev have demanded an explanation from her.

Keep going. I'm pretty sure you can attract many people if you keep unveiling scam projects here and warn people before they invest

[galtbit]

BDRatings, sorry for my off-topic here, but could you please look into this ICO project and join the discussion there to find the truth and try to protect investors?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5059753.new#new

[Hueristic]

BDRatings, sorry for my off-topic here, but could you please look into this ICO project and join the discussion there to find the truth and try to protect investors?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5059753.new#new

You do realize there is a system on this board for PM's correct?

[galtbit]

You do realize there is a system on this board for PM's correct?

Sorry, my bad

[anquang]

It is really a scam. I create my bytecoin BCN wallet in bytecoin.money and now I can not log in to restore my BCN. It is totally a scam project. When you buy it, its price will be up and when many buy already It will be down because It have only one Exchange Poloniex.

It can be easy to control price of bytecoin.

[owlcatz]

All the real evidence from the beginning is here.

Oddly, some people think that the CryptoNote protocol was actually invented by SN, due to the similarities. Nicholas Van Saberhagen does not exist. Just like satoshi. Who knows?

EDIT - It is definitely a scam though no matter how you look at any of the Jenny bullshit. That all came later after a huge period of total inactivity by the dev team if I recall... Maybe the team sold the project to new scammers, IDK... 🤷

The real question remains however.. who is "amjuraez"?  

Also, there have been no changes to any code since 2019, so the scammers may just all be huge bagholders who got scammed too, who fuckin knows lol.... https://github.com/bcndev/bytecoin

Edit:

Such articles about scammers should be sent out as much as possible. After all, if you don't spam about fraudulent companies, many newbies and inexperienced members can suffer from their scams.

Are you calling me a spammer?

[petruxa80962]

Such articles about scammers should be sent out as much as possible. After all, if you don't spam about fraudulent companies, many newbies and inexperienced members can suffer from their scams.