Bitlevex - A Creative Scam where you always lose your money. Promoted by Fractal

[octomon]

Hello all,

Today i wanted to share some information on the scam platform Bitlevex. Bitlevex claims to be a "revolutionary trading platform" that allows traders to trade bitcoin options with up to 1:100 leverage.

Bitlevex was allegedly created by Mikhail Skoblov and claims to be "Licensed by Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Republic of Estonia"

Mikhail Skoblov's Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/mskoblovs/

The person responding to Bitlevex support is Maksis Nikušins, and he can be found here https://www.linkedin.com/in/maksisnikusins/



In getting scammed by Bitlevex, i learned a bit about how the scam operates and i have to say as far as scams go, Bitlevex is a very creatively executed scam.

The scam is the platform gives you the impression that you've made a bad investment decision and thats why you lost your money. But in fact the platform is designed to take all your money no matter what .

I was brought to the platform because of Fractal, i used them to do a kyc on cryptobridge, and they have since sent me advertising emails claiming i could get 150$ signup bonus.

https://pasteboard.co/JhGpEEu.png

This is how the site makes you think it's your fault for loosing your money.

On the bitlevex website there is a feed that shows "Recent community gains" where users are constantly profiting crazy amounts of money, every few seconds, this feed never shows users loosing money

https://pasteboard.co/JhGrcmx.png

When you click the invest button on bitlevex it shows you some predefined investment options , there is also a section on the website where you can define your option parameters.

This is where the scam begins.

On the investment page there is a "profitable" option that says it's the option most traders use for the most profit. But the thing is, for this option it will only allow you to invest a maximum of 100$ . This basically means if the BTC price fluctuates 10-20$ your option will "lose" more money than you put in and it will be automatically liquidated.

Now unless you thoroughly read through all the documentation on the website, you wouldnt know that Bitlevex doesnt allow you to sell your option until it ages for 24 hours. Because of normal BTC volatility and because you can only invest a maximum of 100$ when leveraging 1:100 , you will always lose your money, usually within the first hour.

https://pasteboard.co/JhGsFdy.png

Now you might think "duhh of course your gonna lose your money if you buy a 1:100 option" and i might agree with you, but bear with me this next part will prove to you Bitlevex's malintention and how this platform is undoubtedly a scam. I will also mention it's not clear that your option would be liquidated if the price of BTC went below your call price.

So lost my initial deposit investing in a 1:100 option , but i still had my 150$ bonus, so i used this to better understand the mechanics of this scam(They wouldnt let me withdraw it).

I invested ~148$ in a 1:2 30 day option . This option was a call option at the price of 9200$

Since i didnt lose all my money in the first hour, i was able get to the point with this option where i could sell it.

Now Bitlevex has it posted on their website that they charge 10% interest per annum and it's charged daily.

Ok , so my 1:2 30 day option aged for 24 hours , and actually at the time the price of BTC went up, however my option lost 10% in value.

https://pasteboard.co/JhGzAkp.png


Bitlevex claims "It is a unique product with trusted pricing method by Noble prize winners Black & Scholes"

And when i asked Bitlevex support why i lost 10% on my call option when BTC was above my call price . They referred me to an investopedia article (see the following quote below from our telegram conversation.

https://pasteboard.co/JhGCyqZ.png

They tried to indicate that it was because BTC volatility was low , however the thing is BTC has been pretty bullish for a while now and not only that my option contract had 29 days left until expiration and it was a call at 9200 and BTC was 9300.

So to see if maybe this is some sort of legitimate automated modal , i didnt sell my option with a 10% lost, i let it age another 24 hours, and as i expected after another 24 hours my options lost another 10%!

https://pasteboard.co/JhGDhIi.png

Now this is absurd , this was a call option , with 28 days left, and BTC was 100$ above my initial call price . This modal is fake and is designed to take all your money.

Basically on this platform BTC would have to increase 1000$ each day in order for your option to break even.

TLDR: this is a scam because
Bitlevex encourages users to invest with 1:100  leverage and they only allow users to invest a maximum of 100$ per 1:100 option. They do this by indicating this is the "profitable" investment choice. But it is literally impossible to not lose all your money because Bitlevex wont let you sell your option for 24 hours and the investment parameters are as such that even a small volatility in price will result in you losing all your money.
Regardless of leverage and BTC price movement your investment will lose 10% per day due to the "trusted pricing method by Noble prize winners Black & Scholes". The only way to make money is if you leverage a small amount (1:2) and the price of BTC increases more than 10% per day.
At first i attempted to withdraw my 150$ bonus, after loosing my initial 150$ deposit and they told me i couldn't withdraw unitil i purchased options with it. So i used it to better understand the mechanics of the platform .
Fractal is implicit in this scam as they promote it to users via email. Given this i would never use Fractal for KYC.

Since i was smart enough to use a privacy.com virtual debit card for my bitlevex "investment" ,i have since cancelled the card and requested a refund. Not sure if i will get it or not. Be careful folks!

Edit: here's their bitcointalk post
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5181927.0

[octomon]

Bump. Any thoughts on this? Would be interesting to get the communities opinion about Fractal's involvement here.

Like im starting to wonder if it's intentional, Fractal is a "KYC site" but they use it to siphon your data and expose you to scams . Are they selling our data, identity theft,?

Fractal get's it's name out there because lots of small/medium exchanges need to comply with kyc and dont have a system for it. They use their trust in the community to promote scams and profit off it's huge user base.

Fractal support wont respond to my questions asking why they are promoting this scam . Fractal is even promoting a bitlevex referral program https://fractal.id/deals . And that doesnt really make sense considering  fractal is trying to be a KYC site...yanno not a scam coin/site promoting service.

[bitlevexofficial]

We would like to take a stand on the allegations made in this post. We would also like to ask Bitcointalk moderators to ban the author of the above post due to unjustified allegations and disparagement.

For the community, we would like to clarify the above mentioned issues:
1)  The author is saying that our platform “claims to be” a licensed institution, where in fact, our company is a licensed institution and information regarding that can be easily found in open sources or by following the link on our main page. Our license is valid and term-less and our KYC/AML procedures are being conducted according to the rules of FIU.
2)  We are not charging 10% daily interest on leveraged amounts, we are charging 10% annual interest on a daily basis. Which means that if you have taken a leveraged (100-1) position for let’s say 1000 USD, then you owe 990 USD in total which is not interest-free and is charged as 990 * 0.1 / 365 = 0.27 USD per day.
3)  The size of the leverage positively correlates with risk and potential result. Options with the highest leverage can get stopped-out quite quickly if the BTC price moves in the wrong direction.
4)  As you came from Fractal which offers a unique promotion of 100% bonus on the first deposit of up 150 USD to the user, the authors has gotten his bonus. According to the rules of this promotion, this is bonus money that you can only withdraw if your deposit and bonus have been invested into one of our products at least once. That is why your withdrawal has been rejected.
5)  It is obvious the author lacks understanding of how options operate and are priced in general. His understanding when it comes to options traded with leverage is even worse. There are many parameters in the Black-Scholes formula that are taken into account when pricing an option. Volatility is one of them. Taking into account that volatility of BTC also changes and fluctuates over time, so do the options which use BTC as the underlying asset.
6)  Derivates and especially options are very volatile and risky trading instruments, this is the exact reason why they are potentially so profitable.
7)  There are thousands of happy active Bitlevex users depositing, trading and withdrawing their funds every day.

If you need any assistance and/or consultation about options and their nature, feel free to contact our support.
Thanks for your interest in Bitlevex and your opinion.

[octomon]

We would like to take a stand on the allegations made in this post. We would also like to ask Bitcointalk moderators to ban the author of the above post due to unjustified allegations and disparagement.

For the community, we would like to clarify the above mentioned issues:
1)  The author is saying that our platform “claims to be” a licensed institution, where in fact, our company is a licensed institution and information regarding that can be easily found in open sources or by following the link on our main page. Our license is valid and term-less and our KYC/AML procedures are being conducted according to the rules of FIU.
2)  We are not charging 10% daily interest on leveraged amounts, we are charging 10% annual interest on a daily basis. Which means that if you have taken a leveraged (100-1) position for let’s say 1000 USD, then you owe 990 USD in total which is not interest-free and is charged as 990 * 0.1 / 365 = 0.27 USD per day.
3)  The size of the leverage positively correlates with risk and potential result. Options with the highest leverage can get stopped-out quite quickly if the BTC price moves in the wrong direction.
4)  As you came from Fractal which offers a unique promotion of 100% bonus on the first deposit of up 150 USD to the user, the authors has gotten his bonus. According to the rules of this promotion, this is bonus money that you can only withdraw if your deposit and bonus have been invested into one of our products at least once. That is why your withdrawal has been rejected.
5)  It is obvious the author lacks understanding of how options operate and are priced in general. His understanding when it comes to options traded with leverage is even worse. There are many parameters in the Black-Scholes formula that are taken into account when pricing an option. Volatility is one of them. Taking into account that volatility of BTC also changes and fluctuates over time, so do the options which use BTC as the underlying asset.
6)  Derivates and especially options are very volatile and risky trading instruments, this is the exact reason why they are potentially so profitable.
7)  There are thousands of happy active Bitlevex users depositing, trading and withdrawing their funds every day.

If you need any assistance and/or consultation about options and their nature, feel free to contact our support.
Thanks for your interest in Bitlevex and your opinion.

1. Yes Bitlevex does have a license from Estonia but this doesnt necessarily say that it's a legit company . Obtaining a crypto license from estonia is not a difficult task.
2.I understand interest is 10% per year.
3. Explain why a call option with 1:2 leverage , decreases 10% per day when the call price is increasing.
4. There's no way to make money on this platform , even with a bonus and low leverage options i still loose $50+ as you can only lose money on this platform
5.Explain how a call option with 1:2 leverage loses 10% per day when the call price is increasing . I trade options on the stock market regularly. The funny thing with Bitlevex options is you cant actually execute them , you can only buy and sell the options, and there is no market or orderbook for this so the pricing is solely controlled by bitlevex.
6.Understood. But for your "profitable" option plan with 1:100 leverage. You only allow users to invest a max of 100$ and you dont allow users to withdraw that for 24 hours . If BTC flucuates 5$ you will lose all your money, in my case my option stopped out when the BTC price was the same as my call price.
7.Doubtful, talked to many people in the telegram chat who also lost money. Bitlevex has a "community gains" section of their website that constantly shows users profiting on 1:100 leverage options, but it is litterlly impossible for 1:100 leverage options to not stop out .
8. The options guide on your website doesnt mention anything about STOPPED_OUT options or time decay . You keep trying to indicate the platform is profitable but even the youtube videos demoing the platofmr have shown huge losses in the demo : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8unEn7ThFUg
9. The creator of this platform was involved in an ICO scam recently FSBT bank https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2225492.0

Show some examples of your blackshoals calculations and show how your platform can actually be profitable. Because im not buying it, losing 10% daily when the price of BTC is above the call price of the option and when there is 29 days left in a 30 day option doesnt make any sense.

Edit : So , investing in a 1:10 option , after 24 hours it decreased in value 51%. I bought a call option at 9190.46. Bitcoin is currently 9168$, that's a .24% decrease in price , now i've leverage 1: 10, so let's multiple that loss by 10, 2.4% , where did the 50% loss come from? The option is valid for 30 days. This platform is undoubtedly a scam . See for yourself https://pasteboard.co/JiAXFlp.png

[octomon]

Update 7-21 . I noticed something pretty suspicious about the "Community Gains Feed" Today , it appears to show "Live" gains , new gains showing up every few seconds with the time stamp showing the current time. Well take a look at this one , i thought this was pretty funny, and this also further confirms that this is a scam.

In this "Community gain" the "user" leveraged 1:100 on a put option .Since you can only invest a max of 100$ at a time and you have to wait 24 hours before you can sell your option . Please tell me how this "user"'s option didnt stop out, and please tell me how this put option went up 300% when the price of bitcoin has gone up 2% today?

https://pasteboard.co/JiK3eTf.png

[stompix]

We would like to take a stand on the allegations made in this post. We would also like to ask Bitcointalk moderators to ban the author of the above post due to unjustified allegations and disparagement.

Not going to happen, things don't work like this around here.

For the community, we would like to clarify the above mentioned issues:
1)  The author is saying that our platform “claims to be” a licensed institution, where in fact, our company is a licensed institution and information regarding that can be easily found in open sources or by following the link on our main page. Our license is valid and term-less and our KYC/AML procedures are being conducted according to the rules of FIU.

An Estonian licence? Everyone around here knows that means zero, they issue them faster than hamburgers at burger king.

Now, why did you copied word by word your terms and conditions
https://archive.vn/wFpvF
from bittrex:
https://archive.vn/4cO8A

including the part :

You may not use the Services if you are located in, or a citizen or resident of the United States.

When you claim:

Licensed business activity available worldwide

So, are you fully licenced or not?

[octomon]

So just an update here. I was able to withdraw my funds from this site and only suffered a total loss of 30$ . I am genuinely impressed my withdrawal actually went through. Kudos to bitlevex for that.

While testing the mechanics of this site , i created a 1:10 option with 20$ , and ended up with 10$ profits. I really dont know what to make of this because the owner of the site has been quite vocal with me on telegram accusing me of blackmail and slander (Which this is not.) . Because of the opaque nature of this platform and my experience with the 1:2 options how do i know they just didnt flip a switch to make the scam engine not take all my money.

There are still quite a few issues with this platform that i find extremely concerning.

1. The earnings feed appears to be fake and shows users constantly profiting on 1:100 options . I have asked the Bitlevex admins to show some sort of proof of how this is possible , without sharing user data and they refuse.
2. The "loss prevention" temporary rules that prevent users from selling options until 24 hours has passed, seems stacked against users investing in the "profitable" option not to mention the other options that seem to lose significant value with little explanation.
3. The opaque calculations used to calculate option prices . I again asked bitlevex to clarify this and they refuse . The answer i got from Mikhail was "I am expert in this, but support team is not. That is why some specifics is hard for them to explain". How are the parameters used in the black scholes formula calculated? (Ie volatility)
4.There are no audits that prove that the bitlevex platform actually has the BTC to cover the leveraged options they are selling. Bitlevex should provide a signed message proving BTC ownership.

This is the transaction they sent my withdrawal in, https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/c40661ee0443e34062b0b3e49800d466a2c7088b79d4848316bd98da0bea708a
 Im no expert in this but following the transactions starting here https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/0d8d5b69b24cb24e?from_address=3ASszxkxoo89vze7a4145fbbjx8bU9E98M
I came accross this wallet that contains a total of 20 BTC https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/5d62b27b2e55600a , this wallet typically interacts with binance. And it certainly doesnt look like a lot of withdrawals are coming out of this wallet. I have no evidence this wallet belongs to bitlevex and it does seem there was an attempt made to obfuscate where the withdrawal is coming from, but i cant say this for certain.

[octomon]

Bump. Looks like they *allegedly* emptied that wallet.(https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/5d62b27b2e55600a) Found lots of other seemingly mixed TXes to that wallet.Anyone with more experience with this have a thought on this? Is there a legitimate reason to mix your bitcoin like that. They must be paying 1000s of dollars in TX fees to obfuscate their transactions . Is it possible these are proceeds from the ICO scam that happened a couple years ago by the same guy who runs this site? (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2225492.6000) Mikhail  claims FSBT is not a scam, but please go read the bitcointalk post and follow the links it literally a ICO scam where the site has implemented some sort of opensource banking api and now tries to claim it's legit, it has no use..

 I have asked Mikhail Skoblov a few times in telegram to respond here but he refuses. He claims it's not a scam but he wont answer any of my questions.

Such as
1. How are the black shoals parameters calculated .
2. I have asked him to provide data on the countless 1:100 "gains" that show up in the community gains feed every few seconds, i have specifically asked him to not include user data, just data about when the investment accrued and the parameters of the investment, he refuses.
3. I asked for a CSV showing the black shoals calculations for a 24 hour period and the parameters that make up these calculations. He refuses

Here's his most recent response on telegram
https://pasteboard.co/JjPGAZ8.png

Also these guys keep accusing me of slander but im honestly trying to be as transparent as possible with this scam accusation . Please tell me if im being unfair here .

And lastly is it just me who is horrified that Fractal a company used for KYC for many exchanges is promoting this crap? If you use Fratal for KYC they will sell your email and bombard you with emails promoting scams such as this.