UseCoin Scam

[WarrEagle]

On the subject of UseD... it occurs to me that they had a website which must have been hosted... and paid for... probably in fiat. A few bribes might jog a few memories. Perhaps a reward fund for information leading to the discovery of the perpetrators (I'm sure Moolah would handle the excrow to guarantee honesty). All information to be delivered to the appropriate authorities, of course.

BTW an anyone confirm the transfer of the proceeds from Bittrex? I'm not much good with block explorers. Shouldn't be too hard, unless the coins are being siphoned off slowly to avoid scrutiny... in which case Bittrex still have time to launch an investigation.

Lets see
Emails
BitcoinForum
Pools
CCEx
Bittrex
Web hosting
Escrow
Maidak will be escrowing the IPO/Pre-sale for UseCoin, see instructions below!
ip addresses

there must be enough breadcrumbs to follow.

No, none of that will work. Servers can be purchased with BTC, IP addresses can be masked behind VPN's and botnets. You would totally be wasting energy for NOTHING. I seriously doubt any real crime has been committed and that no authority would even take on the case. Why? You are trading a non-regulated currency system on an exchange where the TOS state no one is responsible for your money except yourself.

Seriously, I'm out around .12 BTC roughly a tank of gas on this scam. I can afford that, having invested in other coins and made money on the IPO upswing. I would have made .3 or .4 BTC on this upswing had I set my sell orders a little bit lower. Greed struck me this time. My sells were at 4000 sat, setting them to 3500 or so would have gotten me out and put some BTC in my wallet. Lesson learned.

[Thistleblower]

On the subject of UseD... it occurs to me that they had a website which must have been hosted... and paid for... probably in fiat. A few bribes might jog a few memories. Perhaps a reward fund for information leading to the discovery of the perpetrators (I'm sure Moolah would handle the excrow to guarantee honesty). All information to be delivered to the appropriate authorities, of course.

BTW an anyone confirm the transfer of the proceeds from Bittrex? I'm not much good with block explorers. Shouldn't be too hard, unless the coins are being siphoned off slowly to avoid scrutiny... in which case Bittrex still have time to launch an investigation.

Lets see
Emails
BitcoinForum
Pools
CCEx
Bittrex
Web hosting
Escrow
Maidak will be escrowing the IPO/Pre-sale for UseCoin, see instructions below!
ip addresses

there must be enough breadcrumbs to follow.

No, none of that will work. Servers can be purchased with BTC, IP addresses can be masked behind VPN's and botnets. You would totally be wasting energy for NOTHING. I seriously doubt any real crime has been committed and that no authority would even take on the case. Why? You are trading a non-regulated currency system on an exchange where the TOS state no one is responsible for your money except yourself.

Seriously, I'm out around .12 BTC roughly a tank of gas on this scam. I can afford that, having invested in other coins and made money on the IPO upswing. I would have made .3 or .4 BTC on this upswing had I set my sell orders a little bit lower. Greed struck me this time. My sells were at 4000 sat, setting them to 3500 or so would have gotten me out and put some BTC in my wallet. Lesson learned.

Tell it to silk road. These altcoin scams are becoming more frequent and audacious, so they're bound to attract the attention of the authorities. They're enacted with the tacit cooperation of Exchanges and other online service providers, who are vulnerable to having their premises raided, their servers seized, their businesses disrupted, and their clients financially  inconvenienced. Thgey're no longer sole traders or small gangs operating independently behind a wall of pseudo-anonymity.

Take Syscoin, for example. I had my fingers slightly singed when trading opened on Mintpal, but I managed to bail out with most of my funds intact. Many others have lost substantial amounts. The coin was released with a laughably dysfunctional wallet, by any altcoin standards, because the developers had no intention of delivering a working product. Moolah handled the escrow, and the developers claimed to have returned the released funds. So now Moolah are holding the spoils and the developers are screaming that they need the funds to deliver a working product. Moolah have offered their support in this endeavour, and meanwhile the price has tanked and the volume has dried up. Mintpal supported the release, and they've taken a big hit on volume as a consequence. Moolah operate out of London as a legitimate financial services provider. So if the Serious Fraud Office come knocking on their doors demanding to know the whereabouts of the 'Devs' and the escrowed funds, Moolah will turn them in without batting an eye.

In the meanwhile the 'investors' are growing more angry because the escrowed funds are neither being returned nor used to develop a working coin. And the whole sorry tale is documented in the pages of Bitcoin Forum. You may think it's all a storm in a teacup, and the 'devs' broke no laws. But people are being conned to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, which makes it a matter for the authorities; and investigations could destroy the whole altcoin scene, by targeting the exchanges. Shouldn't surprise me if one or two of the big players are MtGoxed before the end of the year if this continues.

Of course the best time to begin investigating these scams is when the coins are first announced, and the 'devs' are active online. So mark my words, there are fun times ahead.

[sdersdf2]

Seriously though, everything is just turning into a scam it's unbelievable. If ethereum turns out to be a scam (which it probably is) that might just be enough to actually end crypto for good.

There are many well known ppl behind Ethereum, so I don´t believe its a scam. But there still can something go wrong badly.

Ethereum isn't a scam - the problem is that their ICO isn't structured like an investment where you can expect much of an ROI. It's set up more like a donation.

[Thistleblower]

Seriously though, everything is just turning into a scam it's unbelievable. If ethereum turns out to be a scam (which it probably is) that might just be enough to actually end crypto for good.

There are many well known ppl behind Ethereum, so I don´t believe its a scam. But there still can something go wrong badly.

Ethereum isn't a scam - the problem is that their ICO isn't structured like an investment where you can expect much of an ROI. It's set up more like a donation.

You mean a registered charity? Because it's illegal to solicit donations without being a registered charity.

[sdersdf2]

Seriously though, everything is just turning into a scam it's unbelievable. If ethereum turns out to be a scam (which it probably is) that might just be enough to actually end crypto for good.

There are many well known ppl behind Ethereum, so I don´t believe its a scam. But there still can something go wrong badly.

Ethereum isn't a scam - the problem is that their ICO isn't structured like an investment where you can expect much of an ROI. It's set up more like a donation.

You mean a registered charity? Because it's illegal to solicit donations without being a registered charity.

Well, they're set up like a non-profit foundation, no? And they have good lawyers - they've made it look like an ICO (and sound like one), when the reality of how it's set up makes it a virtual donation.

[Thistleblower]

And with it will go BTC, and everything you love about it.

No BTC's too big to go down with the alts. But the alts are dead without the exchanges.

[sdersdf2]

Tell it to silk road. These altcoin scams are becoming more frequent and audacious, so they're bound to attract the attention of the authorities. They're enacted with the tacit cooperation of Exchanges and other online service providers, who are vulnerable to having their premises raided, their servers seized, their businesses disrupted, and their clients financially  inconvenienced. Thgey're no longer sole traders or small gangs operating independently behind a wall of pseudo-anonymity.

Take Syscoin, for example. I had my fingers slightly singed when trading opened on Mintpal, but I managed to bail out with most of my funds intact. Many others have lost substantial amounts. The coin was released with a laughably dysfunctional wallet, by any altcoin standards, because the developers had no intention of delivering a working product. Moolah handled the escrow, and the developers claimed to have returned the released funds. So now Moolah are holding the spoils and the developers are screaming that they need the funds to deliver a working product. Moolah have offered their support in this endeavour, and meanwhile the price has tanked and the volume has dried up. Mintpal supported the release, and they've taken a big hit on volume as a consequence. Moolah operate out of London as a legitimate financial services provider. So if the Serious Fraud Office come knocking on their doors demanding to know the whereabouts of the 'Devs' and the escrowed funds, Moolah will turn them in without batting an eye.

In the meanwhile the 'investors' are growing more angry because the escrowed funds are neither being returned nor used to develop a working coin. And the whole sorry tale is documented in the pages of Bitcoin Forum. You may think it's all a storm in a teacup, and the 'devs' broke no laws. But people are being conned to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, which makes it a matter for the authorities; and investigations could destroy the whole altcoin scene, by targeting the exchanges. Shouldn't surprise me if one or two of the big players are MtGoxed before the end of the year if this continues.

Of course the best time to begin investigating these scams is when the coins are first announced, and the 'devs' are active online. So mark my words, there are fun times ahead.

And with it will go BTC, and everything you love about it.

BTC has been quite weak all year - perhaps in anticipation of this. It will certainly be devastating to the alts world if it happens.
This is a scary - and plausible - scenario. And we're all collectively to blame. We had a chance to make the most of a true free market (one of the few left in this world) and really botched it.

[bitcoinwonders010]

And with it will go BTC, and everything you love about it.

No BTC's too big to go down with the alts. But the alts are dead without the exchanges.

the scam could have been easily caught out if bittrex was online. i think the problem here was that we were misunderstanding that the coins had been destroyed. we should have cleared that first before the ipo being released. we just need to make sure the next ipo we need to make sure that any remaining coins are destroyed. i think dev got greedy because he saw the coins were worth shit loads

[Thistleblower]

Seriously though, everything is just turning into a scam it's unbelievable. If ethereum turns out to be a scam (which it probably is) that might just be enough to actually end crypto for good.

There are many well known ppl behind Ethereum, so I don´t believe its a scam. But there still can something go wrong badly.

Ethereum isn't a scam - the problem is that their ICO isn't structured like an investment where you can expect much of an ROI. It's set up more like a donation.

You mean a registered charity? Because it's illegal to solicit donations without being a registered charity.

Well, they're set up like a non-profit foundation, no? And they have good lawyers - they've made it look like an ICO (and sound like one), when the reality of how it's set up makes it a virtual donation.

A non-profit foundation is a charity if it solicits donations. And charities have to be registered as such.
Looking at their website, they're raising funds by selling a coin like any other, based on a new technology. Whether that technology is delivered or not remains to be seen. If it is genuine then it will be traded with the same risks as any other coin. But scam IPOs could still damage the success of it's launch. I'm surprised that major platforms like Cryptsy and Mintpal are even touching these anonymous IPOs. They should be left to flounder in the marginal exchanges. But then Mintpal and Cryptsy have lost 75% of their volumes in the last few months. Still taking around $125,000 dollars a day each though. Which is reason enough to exercise restraint and due diligence before accepting coins on their platforms.

[Thistleblower]

And with it will go BTC, and everything you love about it.

No BTC's too big to go down with the alts. But the alts are dead without the exchanges.

the scam could have been easily caught out if bittrex was online. i think the problem here was that we were misunderstanding that the coins had been destroyed. we should have cleared that first before the ipo being released. we just need to make sure the next ipo we need to make sure that any remaining coins are destroyed. i think dev got greedy because he saw the coins were worth shit loads

Bittrex should have been aware of the volume of Use being deposited to their exchange. It wasn't an insignificant amount. They should also have launched an investigation before releasing the BTC (if they have indeed been released). And for better or worse they still have a lot of documentation that could be used to trace the scammers. They also have the wallet addresses for the withdrawal of the scammed funds. So Bittrex might have been caught napping, but they also chose to nothing for the protection of their clients.
I shan't be back.

[Thistleblower]

Tell it to silk road. These altcoin scams are becoming more frequent and audacious, so they're bound to attract the attention of the authorities. They're enacted with the tacit cooperation of Exchanges and other online service providers, who are vulnerable to having their premises raided, their servers seized, their businesses disrupted, and their clients financially  inconvenienced. Thgey're no longer sole traders or small gangs operating independently behind a wall of pseudo-anonymity.

Take Syscoin, for example. I had my fingers slightly singed when trading opened on Mintpal, but I managed to bail out with most of my funds intact. Many others have lost substantial amounts. The coin was released with a laughably dysfunctional wallet, by any altcoin standards, because the developers had no intention of delivering a working product. Moolah handled the escrow, and the developers claimed to have returned the released funds. So now Moolah are holding the spoils and the developers are screaming that they need the funds to deliver a working product. Moolah have offered their support in this endeavour, and meanwhile the price has tanked and the volume has dried up. Mintpal supported the release, and they've taken a big hit on volume as a consequence. Moolah operate out of London as a legitimate financial services provider. So if the Serious Fraud Office come knocking on their doors demanding to know the whereabouts of the 'Devs' and the escrowed funds, Moolah will turn them in without batting an eye.

In the meanwhile the 'investors' are growing more angry because the escrowed funds are neither being returned nor used to develop a working coin. And the whole sorry tale is documented in the pages of Bitcoin Forum. You may think it's all a storm in a teacup, and the 'devs' broke no laws. But people are being conned to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, which makes it a matter for the authorities; and investigations could destroy the whole altcoin scene, by targeting the exchanges. Shouldn't surprise me if one or two of the big players are MtGoxed before the end of the year if this continues.

Of course the best time to begin investigating these scams is when the coins are first announced, and the 'devs' are active online. So mark my words, there are fun times ahead.

And with it will go BTC, and everything you love about it.

BTC has been quite weak all year - perhaps in anticipation of this. It will certainly be devastating to the alts world if it happens.
This is a scary - and plausible - scenario. And we're all collectively to blame. We had a chance to make the most of a true free market (one of the few left in this world) and really botched it.

That's why we have regulation. People who resent government, regulation, and the police don't do so because they support anarchy. It's because they want to impose rules that work to their own personal advantage. In the 'alt' world freedom has come to mean being free to prey on the weakest and least advantaged.

[Danoded]

Seriously though, everything is just turning into a scam it's unbelievable. If ethereum turns out to be a scam (which it probably is) that might just be enough to actually end crypto for good.

There are many well known ppl behind Ethereum, so I don´t believe its a scam. But there still can something go wrong badly.

Ethereum isn't a scam - the problem is that their ICO isn't structured like an investment where you can expect much of an ROI. It's set up more like a donation.

Only said the first part not the second.

[bitcoinwonders010]

And with it will go BTC, and everything you love about it.

No BTC's too big to go down with the alts. But the alts are dead without the exchanges.

the scam could have been easily caught out if bittrex was online. i think the problem here was that we were misunderstanding that the coins had been destroyed. we should have cleared that first before the ipo being released. we just need to make sure the next ipo we need to make sure that any remaining coins are destroyed. i think dev got greedy because he saw the coins were worth shit loads

Bittrex should have been aware of the volume of Use being deposited to their exchange. It wasn't an insignificant amount. They should also have launched an investigation before releasing the BTC (if they have indeed been released). And for better or worse they still have a lot of documentation that could be used to trace the scammers. They also have the wallet addresses for the withdrawal of the scammed funds. So Bittrex might have been caught napping, but they also chose to nothing for the protection of their clients.
I shan't be back.

i do agree i found it really suspicious they were sleeping while dev was dumping. what timing. someone was saying it was looking like a scam the day before but he got bullied for being a fudder

i actually made money on it but lost money buying at 600sats thought it was fud. lost the profit. luckily no capital. feel sorry for others

[sdersdf2]

And with it will go BTC, and everything you love about it.

No BTC's too big to go down with the alts. But the alts are dead without the exchanges.

the scam could have been easily caught out if bittrex was online. i think the problem here was that we were misunderstanding that the coins had been destroyed. we should have cleared that first before the ipo being released. we just need to make sure the next ipo we need to make sure that any remaining coins are destroyed. i think dev got greedy because he saw the coins were worth shit loads

It seems there's almost always some little detail that is missed or swept under the rug until after the launch, whether it's usecoin, clstr, sys, storj, etc.
Most people aren't motivated to scrutinise until there's an immediate interest in doing so, or are simply blinded by the potential upside until it's too late.

[sdersdf2]

Wasn't involved in this mess, thank goodness, but amid a growing number of questions about the extent of Bittrex's involvement in these failed ICOs, I'm curious, came across this Bittrex message from earlier this year and asked the following question.

We're looking for IPO coins to partner with.  If you are interested, please let me know.

Could you explain the original intent of this message?

Looking forward to Bittrex's answer.

[poornamelessme]

Wasn't involved in this mess, thank goodness, but amid a growing number of questions about the extent of Bittrex's involvement in these failed ICOs, I'm curious, came across this Bittrex message from earlier this year and asked the following question.

We're looking for IPO coins to partner with.  If you are interested, please let me know.

Could you explain the original intent of this message?

Looking forward to Bittrex's answer.

Bittrex obviously has been offering ICOs on their exchange, basically as a form of escrow. That would be the logical answer.

Usecoin was not one of them, by the way.

[Thistleblower]

Wasn't involved in this mess, thank goodness, but amid a growing number of questions about the extent of Bittrex's involvement in these failed ICOs, I'm curious, came across this Bittrex message from earlier this year and asked the following question.

We're looking for IPO coins to partner with.  If you are interested, please let me know.

Could you explain the original intent of this message?

Looking forward to Bittrex's answer.

Bittrex obviously has been offering ICOs on their exchange, basically as a form of escrow. That would be the logical answer.

Usecoin was not one of them, by the way.

You know this how? Did Bittrex not undertake the initial distribution of the pre-sold coins?

So Bittrex had a million and a half unsold use sat in a trading account on the day of the launch and nobody thought to ask why?
The hole just got deeper. I strongly advise you to stop digging. Perhaps a little due diligence would be in order.

[poornamelessme]

\

You know this how? Did Bittrex not undertake the initial distribution of the pre-sold coins?

So Bittrex had a million and a half unsold use sat in a trading account on the day of the launch and nobody thought to ask why?
The hole just got deeper. I strongly advise you to stop digging. Perhaps a little due diligence would be in order.

I am saying that Bittrex did not offer escrow on the coin, so it wasn't one of their ICOs. That is all I am saying. And I know this as it's obvious how the IPO was set up.

Bittrex listed the coin on their exchange for trading before they should have. That is where they are guilty.

[Thistleblower]

\

You know this how? Did Bittrex not undertake the initial distribution of the pre-sold coins?

So Bittrex had a million and a half unsold use sat in a trading account on the day of the launch and nobody thought to ask why?
The hole just got deeper. I strongly advise you to stop digging. Perhaps a little due diligence would be in order.

I am saying that Bittrex did not offer escrow on the coin, so it wasn't one of their ICOs. That is all I am saying. And I know this as it's obvious how the IPO was set up.

Bittrex listed the coin on their exchange for trading before they should have. That is where they are guilty.

Which still doesn't answer the question of how a million and a half unsold coins wound up in a trading account on the day of the launch. Or why the developer should have claimed that Bittrex had agreed to destroy those coins. If they were held for destruction then why were they held in a trading account?
Can of worms anybody?

[poornamelessme]

Which still doesn't answer the question of how a million and a half unsold coins wound up in a trading account on the day of the launch. Or why the developer should have claimed that Bittrex had agreed to destroy those coins. If they were held for destruction then why were they held in a trading account?
Can of worms anybody?

I do not know if Bittrex had even been given the coins to destroy yet. If so, they would have typically went to a locked account that Bittrex was in charge of. They stated they agreed to destroy the coins as a courtesy, which after this debacle, they no longer will extend.

If the coins weren't sent to be destroyed yet, which is what I assume,  all the dev had to to was use a regular account, send the coins there, and sell them like any regular investor. All people had was the word of the dev that the coins were to be destroyed. I am not aware of any proof that they were held anywhere safely.