The Bromance of FruitsBasket and CryptoSparks

[DireWolfM14]

What's really going on with FruitBasket and CryptoSparks?  At first blush I was suspicious that the two are alts of one user, but I am unable to find any evidence to support this suspicion.  But I did find that FruitBasket does have an alt that was busted for being a paid shill...  Things that make you go HMMMM...

Not long ago CryptoSparks started a topic offering to pay for shilling his trading bot service.  The same service that any rational person would scrutinize with a healthy dose of skepticism.  Lo and behold, here's FruitBasket, defending and promoting CryptoSparks scambot.

So, @FruitBasket are you a paid shill for CryptoSparks?

[TECSHARE]

Its sad watching you devolve into such a pathetic muckraker DirewolfM14. Just remember when the standard is mob justice, inevitably you become the target of the mob instead of part of it.

[PrimeNumber7]

Based on the evidence you are citing, I would say it is more likely they are in some kind of business relationship than the two being alts.

Technically speaking, BestWebCreator didn't offer shilling services (he solicited a TG handle in response to a solicitation for these services), but if his name pops up in a case of likely paid shilling, one can make a reasonable conclusion.

I don't want to get involved in forum drama, but I also don't support the flag against CryptoSparks. I would describe what he is offering as similar to GunBot, who has many vouches from reputable forum members, the main difference being that CryptoSparks has settings 'pre-filled' for his customers. GunBot also appears to have what I assume to be paid salesmen, and although I don't know the specifics of the commission/payment structure, I think it would be fair to say it would be similar to what CryptoSparks is offering in the thread you describe as "offering to pay for shilling".

CryptoSparks loan request was a little scammy, but a lender could negotiate better terms that would better protect the lender, such as asking CryptoSparks to put up some of his own money that would be used to cover the first trading losses, if any.

I would not personally trade with a bot I didn't code myself, but I cannot deny this does not commonly happen. 

[hacker1001101001]

From, the evidence until, there is no solid proof of FruitsBasket being and alt of CryptoSpark other than FruitsBasket defending him. They rather could be some known users to each other obviously.

I don't support the flag against CryptoSparks, because there is no real victim until who lost funds and reported. Of course, I don't trust trading bot's and don't recommend anyone to use the same without any prior knowledge about the code behind it. But, this doesn't make CryptoSpark a scammer either due to no documented fraud against him.

Just remember when the standard is mob justice, inevitably you become the target of the mob instead of part of it.

To understand this you need to be a target of the mob first. It's not that easy to interpret but is true.

[PrimeNumber7]

I don't support the flag against CryptoSparks, because there is no real victim until who lost funds and reported.

The type of flag involved actually does not requite any actual victims. It only requires the perso nto be engaging in high risk activity.

[Vispilio]

Based on the evidence you are citing, I would say it is more likely they are in some kind of business relationship than the two being alts.

Technically speaking, BestWebCreator didn't offer shilling services (he solicited a TG handle in response to a solicitation for these services), but if his name pops up in a case of likely paid shilling, one can make a reasonable conclusion.

I don't want to get involved in forum drama, but I also don't support the flag against CryptoSparks. I would describe what he is offering as similar to GunBot, who has many vouches from reputable forum members, the main difference being that CryptoSparks has settings 'pre-filled' for his customers. GunBot also appears to have what I assume to be paid salesmen, and although I don't know the specifics of the commission/payment structure, I think it would be fair to say it would be similar to what CryptoSparks is offering in the thread you describe as "offering to pay for shilling".

CryptoSparks loan request was a little scammy, but a lender could negotiate better terms that would better protect the lender, such as asking CryptoSparks to put up some of his own money that would be used to cover the first trading losses, if any.

I would not personally trade with a bot I didn't code myself, but I cannot deny this does not commonly happen.  

CryptoSparks made a number of critical errors that completely undermined his credibility as a prospective asset manager:

Apart from the very childish and atrocious attitude which has already been discussed at length, here are a few breaches of trust that would justify the flag and disqualify him from any serious business proposition:

1) He claimed his bot returned 480% in 20 months, it turns out these were just pro forma backtests, ie: NOT LIVE RESULTS (presenting a backtest as real trading performance would lead to the revoking of your license as a CTA or asset manager in many jurisdictions, including the United States, where legally you can't even publish live results unless they are audited by a certified 3rd party...)

2) He was visiting the forums at the beginning of every month and publishing some Bitmex trades, claiming that he already had a very profitable bot working very well for his investors going as far back as 3 months ago (as AdolfinWolf quotes here ). Later it turns out that project got scrapped, and now he has a new bot called Arakne, which begs the question: what happened to Phoenix and your earlier investors bro, and why you are down to trading with nominal lots of 10 USD in a massively leveraged exchange, where you used to do round trips of 10k USD or greater just a couple of months ago... 

How many people got rekt already because of your immoral marketing tactics and shamelessly deceptive presentation of your experimental bots?..

As it stands, unless CryptoSparks tremendously improves his honesty and ethics, a warning flag against him is very appropriate.

[bob123]

I would describe what he is offering as similar to GunBot, who has many vouches from reputable forum members, the main difference being that CryptoSparks has settings 'pre-filled' for his customers.

The interesting questions are..

1) If you have a really profitable trading bot (i.e. any trading bot with good strategies which generate profit in the long term), why would you share it ? Why not simply put all the money you have into it and profit yourself. That would be a money-making machine.
Sharing it with others just decreases your profit.

2) How can you claim that more people applying the same strategy will result in more profit for everyone ? There is no logical explanation for that.
This was one of the reasons he mentioned why he shares his bot. More people applying his strategy -> everyone's profit increases.

I don't support the flag against CryptoSparks, because there is no real victim until who lost funds and reported.

The type of flag involved actually does not requite any actual victims. It only requires the perso nto be engaging in high risk activity.

Exactly. Multiple red flags -> people are at high-risk when dealing with him.
The flag is not about any victim or proven scam. It is just to warn others (especially newbies).



Regarding the FruitBasket <-> CryptoSparks topic.. might be possible that he got paid for shilling.
But it also might be possible that he tried out the bot and it indeed generated some profit.

And before somone claims that this proves that it is not a scam.. let me remind you of bitconnect. Bitconnect also generated profit for a lot of people. These people also advertised and defended it. That's neither an argument pro nor contra being a scam.

[tmfp]

I've been watching the development of trading bots/quants for a long time and seen them come and go with varying results, not just in crypto.
CryptoSparks has had to field some pretty dumb assertions and has reacted strongly, I don't blame him for that.
Obviously we're all on Scam Alert on a daily basis, usually triggered by high ROI's, and I'm making no judgement on CS and his scheme at the moment.
The central question is "How will he scam you?"
If you invest your money directly into your own Bitmex account and IF the API key is set up so that no third party has direct access to those deposited funds, where is the scam?
You may well lose your money if/when the trading system incurs trading losses, but how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?
Until that can be answered, everything else is just peripheral noise.

[Vispilio]

I've been watching the development of trading bots/quants for a long time and seen them come and go with varying results, not just in crypto.
CryptoSparks has had to field some pretty dumb assertions and has reacted strongly, I don't blame him for that.
Obviously we're all on Scam Alert on a daily basis, usually triggered by high ROI's, and I'm making no judgement on CS and his scheme at the moment.
The central question is "How will he scam you?"
If you invest your money directly into your own Bitmex account and IF the API key is set up so that no third party has direct access to those deposited funds, where is the scam?
You may well lose your money if/when the trading system incurs trading losses, but how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?
Until that can be answered, everything else is just peripheral noise.

He wants to participate in the upside of his investors without disclosing the full range of risks involved in his proposition, that typically counts as the equivalent of fraud in the world of hedge funds & asset management.

He will not profit when his trading system incurs losses, he will have simply offloaded the losses onto his naive investors who trusted his 100% false marketing propaganda like "ROI 490%" and similar (what RoI , it was a hypothetical backtest, which is one of the first standard basic steps in creating any trading strategy, nothing was invested, just to give you one example)...

[DireWolfM14]

Its sad watching you devolve into such a pathetic muckraker DirewolfM14.

Of course you're right.  Stooping to the level of mudslinging by CryptoSparks is beneath me and I should do better to avoid it.

The central question is "How will he scam you?"

He did ask for a 5 bitcoin loan offering nothing of value as collateral.  I'd call that fairly high risk.

If you invest your money directly into your own Bitmex account and IF the API key is set up so that no third party has direct access to those deposited funds, where is the scam?  You may well lose your money if/when the trading system incurs trading losses, but how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?

There's nothing wrong with that strategy, other than the fact that he was promising impossible returns.  And I will take issue with your claim that he responded strongly to his detractors; all he's done is respond with insults and attacks.  Nobody really paid any attention to him until he offered to pay for promoting his service and requesting a $50k loan.  He might have actually made something of his service if he didn't start lying and insulting those who asked legitimate questions.  His responses also seem to contain a lack of knowledge of how bitcoin works, making it clear to me that he's no programmer.  He is an altcoin spammer who some how came across a trading bot that I doubt he developed, and threw in some buzz words to make it sound legit.

If he really does have a quantitative trading algorithm why would he share it with the two million members of bitcointalk?  That would effectively defeat the purpose of having such a tool.  The more people who employ a trading strategy the less profitable that strategy becomes.  Institutional trading giants pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in salary to their quant programmers.  Their code is a top-secret tool, not something they show off or boast about.  The algorithms they use are constantly in flux, what worked yesterday is certain to not work today.

You can show me code of his bot, and I wouldn't be able tell you if it's real or not, because I'm not a coder.  But I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, either.

[hacker1001101001]

I don't support the flag against CryptoSparks, because there is no real victim until who lost funds and reported.

The type of flag involved actually does not requite any actual victims. It only requires the perso nto be engaging in high risk activity.

I never said the flag is wrong at it place, I think you miss read it. I just said I don't support it as I don't see any solid evidence about him scamming someone's money.

And yaa, as @tmpf said earlier, until proven everything is just guessing. I can trust his judgement blindly lol.

[suchmoon]

You may well lose your money if/when the trading system incurs trading losses, but how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?
Until that can be answered, everything else is just peripheral noise.

For example he can buy some horrible low volume shitcoin and then sell it to his customers, i.e. buy it from himself at an inflated price using customer funds.

[actmyname]

how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?
Until that can be answered, everything else is just peripheral noise.

Simple.

If you profit, he'll ask for a share.
If you don't, he didn't risk anything.It's basically equivalent to having 100% lossback on a gambling site.

[Theb]

Aside from FruitBasket there is really no one defending CryptoSharks on the services he is offering so I wouldn't give too much weight on him since he is only one person which can't be proven reliable. It's obvious that only one person is saving his ass that it can only mean they are either working together or FruitBasket is paid to save him, I don't see how only one person is giving him a good feedback when he claims that he has a good trading both that provides "guaranteed returns" to its users.

[TECSHARE]

Aside from FruitBasket there is really no one defending CryptoSharks on the services he is offering so I wouldn't give too much weight on him since he is only one person which can't be proven reliable. It's obvious that only one person is saving his ass that it can only mean they are either working together or FruitBasket is paid to save him, I don't see how only one person is giving him a good feedback when he claims that he has a good trading both that provides "guaranteed returns" to its users.

So now some ones innocence or guilt is determined by how many people defend them? This is the popularity contest I was speaking of previously in addition to the burden of being judged guilty until proven innocent. Not only do people have to prove themselves innocent to the mob, but if they don't grovel sufficiently it doesn't matter how much they prove  their innocence. Plenty of people have no one defend them even when they did nothing wrong simply based on the fact that they don't want to be the next target of the mob for daring to contradict them, exactly like is being done to FruitBasket.

[PrimeNumber7]

I would describe what he is offering as similar to GunBot, who has many vouches from reputable forum members, the main difference being that CryptoSparks has settings 'pre-filled' for his customers.

The interesting questions are..

1) If you have a really profitable trading bot (i.e. any trading bot with good strategies which generate profit in the long term), why would you share it ? Why not simply put all the money you have into it and profit yourself. That would be a money-making machine.
Sharing it with others just decreases your profit.

There are many people who create trading bots for their employer. Hedge funds and HFT firms need bots to trade, and I would assume their principals are not the only ones creating their trading bots (the HFT firms, and hedge funds hire people to create their bots).

He is selling his bot for 20% of the profits. If he can get people to cumulatively use a 'bankroll' 501% of what he can afford to risk in a bankroll, he will have higher profits than if he was using his own money.

I also am not sure that he is claiming it is 'guaranteed' his bot will produce positive returns. In a heavily regulated world, he would give a disclaimer that previous performance does not guarantee future results, but the crypto economy is still the wild west with virtually no regulation.

2) How can you claim that more people applying the same strategy will result in more profit for everyone ? There is no logical explanation for that.
This was one of the reasons he mentioned why he shares his bot. More people applying his strategy -> everyone's profit increases.

I am not sure I agree with this conclusion. He may argue that buying during a sharp, sudden decline may slow or reverse the decline and create bounces off lows we often see in trading action. See bitcoin going from ~7800 to ~8400 in well under an hour today. If he did make this argument, I am not sure I would agree with his logic without first studying the specifics.

1) He claimed his bot returned 480% in 20 months, it turns out these were just pro forma backtests, ie: NOT LIVE RESULTS (presenting a backtest as real trading performance would lead to the revoking of your license as a CTA or asset manager in many jurisdictions, including the United States, where legally you can't even publish live results unless they are audited by a certified 3rd party...)

Do you have a link to this? If this is true, and there are no extenuating circumstances, my opinion on him would change.

how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?
Until that can be answered, everything else is just peripheral noise.

Simple.

If you profit, he'll ask for a share.
If you don't, he didn't risk anything.It's basically equivalent to having 100% lossback on a gambling site.

This should be transparent to anyone considering using his services. You may have a good reason to think this is a raw deal for any possible investor, but any possible investor is free to negotiate terms acceptable to him or her.  


I am not vouching for CryptoSparks, and he may turn out to be a scammer. My position is that him offering his bot services does not automatically make him a scammer.

[actmyname]

how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?
Until that can be answered, everything else is just peripheral noise.

Simple.

If you profit, he'll ask for a share.
If you don't, he didn't risk anything.It's basically equivalent to having 100% lossback on a gambling site.

This should be transparent to anyone considering using his services. You may have a good reason to think this is a raw deal for any possible investor, but any possible investor is free to negotiate terms acceptable to him or her.  


I am not vouching for CryptoSparks, and he may turn out to be a scammer. My position is that him offering his bot services does not automatically make him a scammer.

I agree... but this is similar to when the whole "bitcoin accelerator" spam took off where they are basically hoping that the users using the method (or believing that they're using the method) are profiting.

The difference here is that with an API key a malicious entity can do much, much, more than a 'bitcoin accelerator'. They can enact trades to dump their coins and manipulate the market by wash-trading to inflate volume, creating buy/sell walls, chunking off buy/sell orders, etc.If the bot is transparent and OS then CryptoSparks will only get a temporary customer. If it is not then you are relying on the trustworthiness and reliability of CryptoSparks.

[PrimeNumber7]

how will CS profit from that if his only income comes from sharing in your profit?
Until that can be answered, everything else is just peripheral noise.

Simple.

If you profit, he'll ask for a share.
If you don't, he didn't risk anything.It's basically equivalent to having 100% lossback on a gambling site.

This should be transparent to anyone considering using his services. You may have a good reason to think this is a raw deal for any possible investor, but any possible investor is free to negotiate terms acceptable to him or her.  


I am not vouching for CryptoSparks, and he may turn out to be a scammer. My position is that him offering his bot services does not automatically make him a scammer.

I agree... but this is similar to when the whole "bitcoin accelerator" spam took off where they are basically hoping that the users using the method (or believing that they're using the method) are profiting.

The difference here is that with an API key a malicious entity can do much, much, more than a 'bitcoin accelerator'. They can enact trades to dump their coins and manipulate the market by wash-trading to inflate volume, creating buy/sell walls, chunking off buy/sell orders, etc.

Sure someone with API keys can do all sorts of things, but I don’t believe there is evidence to suggest the bot is doing any of these things. More importantly, CryptoSparks appears to have a target market of those using a few thousand dollars to trade with, and even the altcoin markets on bitmex are liquid enough so that these amounts are not going to move the market very much.

More importantly, I think CryptoSparks probably stands to profit more from the long term trading profits off of his customers verses having advance knowledge of a few percentage points move caused by his bot.

Regarding your "transaction accelerator" comment, I have seen these threads and thought about approaching one or more mining pools with a proposal to 'pre-pay' for block space well in advance, with the hopes of setting up a platform where I would resell block space to people whose transactions are 'stuck' at a premium rate, and a profit.

Edit/spelling 

[crwth]

I don't want to get involved in forum drama, but I also don't support the flag against CryptoSparks. I would describe what he is offering as similar to GunBot, who has many vouches from reputable forum members, the main difference being that CryptoSparks has settings 'pre-filled' for his customers.

As part of the Gunbot Family, there are a lot of differences with regards to the function of the bot. Generally, what CryptoSpark is offering is that the bot has limitations and "requires" a certain amount of balance to start. With Gunbot it's not like that. A big difference as well is that it's a subscription and you have to pay 20% of the earned profits from your main account while Gunbot is a one-time payment fee and it includes future updates.

Features and functions don't compare to Gunbot, it's lightyears away to be near to the functionality Gunbot. Gunbot is for real traders/users, not "pre-filled" settings.

That's what's great with Gunbot, we don't need the API Secret just the API Key. When sellers ask for your SECRET key, it's already a warning sign, it should stay secret and with Gunbot we don't need that to activate your license.

4. Send me the API KEY and SECRET via telegram so i can setup the bot.
5. Rent a VPS for 10$. VPS is necessary to always keep the bot running.
4. Enjoy your month of passive income
5. Once the month ends, if you want 1 more month in the army, you need to pay 20% of previous month earnings in BTC. Otherwise just leave with all profits.

My concern also is that with the "pre-filled" settings. What if they decided to trade against the trend or something that would lead to your balance liquidation? I don't think I would be interested in testing this kind of bot.

If some of you guys are interested to try Gunbot, let me know, there are ongoing promos.

[TECSHARE]

I don't want to get involved in forum drama, but I also don't support the flag against CryptoSparks. I would describe what he is offering as similar to GunBot, who has many vouches from reputable forum members, the main difference being that CryptoSparks has settings 'pre-filled' for his customers.

As part of the Gunbot Family, there are a lot of differences with regards to the function of the bot. Generally, what CryptoSpark is offering is that the bot has limitations and "requires" a certain amount of balance to start. With Gunbot it's not like that. A big difference as well is that it's a subscription and you have to pay 20% of the earned profits from your main account while Gunbot is a one-time payment fee and it includes future updates.

Features and functions don't compare to Gunbot, it's lightyears away to be near to the functionality Gunbot. Gunbot is for real traders/users, not "pre-filled" settings.

That's what's great with Gunbot, we don't need the API Secret just the API Key. When sellers ask for your SECRET key, it's already a warning sign, it should stay secret and with Gunbot we don't need that to activate your license.

4. Send me the API KEY and SECRET via telegram so i can setup the bot.
5. Rent a VPS for 10$. VPS is necessary to always keep the bot running.
4. Enjoy your month of passive income
5. Once the month ends, if you want 1 more month in the army, you need to pay 20% of previous month earnings in BTC. Otherwise just leave with all profits.

My concern also is that with the "pre-filled" settings. What if they decided to trade against the trend or something that would lead to your balance liquidation? I don't think I would be interested in testing this kind of bot.

If some of you guys are interested to try Gunbot, let me know, there are ongoing promos.

 Thanks for the advertisement. I am curious, how many of the people supporting these accusations and this flag are affiliated with Gunbot? It seems to me there could very well be some conflict of interest here in an attempt to stifle competition.