Perhaps when during course of research on projects concerns are uncovered then shared with community for confirmation and hopefully preventing financial harm to our fellow community members.
Ryse.cc
Site: https://ryse.cc
Whitepaper: doesnât appear to exist
- Promises between 31% up to 124% in interest on a monthly basis.
- Basic website doesnât contain team details
- Basic website doesnât contain whitepaper / information on how the project works.
- FAQ is small and not explanatory.
- Hard to find any viable information on this project online.
It is simply impossible to guarantee 31% return on investment on a monthly basis, let alone 124%. Anyone that can make that high a percentage in trading or using trading robots doesnât need other peopleâs money to do so.
Even if they have virtually no money (say 1,000 USD), they could multiply their money by a factor of 25x in 5 months time due to compounded interest; they do not need other peoples money to do so.
2 Likes
Power of Weak Hands 3D or PoWH3D
This is a ponzi scheme.
2 Likes
JoinGrowth
I have serious concerns about this project; while this is not necessarily a scam or ponzi scheme per definition the write up of this project raises a lot of concerns.
Site: http://joingrowth.net/
Whitepaper: http://joingrowth.net/wp-pdf/WHITEPAPER_JGC.pdf
- The team by and large doesnât exist on LinkedIn
- The white paper is very unclear and even though Iâve send them a lot of suggestions on how to clarify things (which they asked for), nothing has been updated in months.
- The spokesperson has disappeared (no longer communicates on mail / linkedin / telegram / ToshiTimes) and no longer associates with the project on Linked In.
- Distribution of funds is highly unclear
- White paper raises a lot of red flags (Iâll do a much more detailed write up about this soon)
- Company claims to have set up 12 companies previously in various industries, but none of these companies are listed anywhere in their documentation and when asked no information is provided
- etc.
The basic premise of the project is:
- Raise money through ICO
- Use ICO money to fund a Payday loans scheme (which is illegal in some countries)
- Charge a higher than average interest rate on Payday loans (+18%)
- Use Payday loan money to build online education courses
- Ask students to buy these courses by investing a minimum of 50USD (this is in Mexico)
- Students can invest for 6 - 12 - 24 months and will receive a monthly interest on investment
- Once students complete their online course, money is reimbursed to students
While I liked the project at first (providing education opportunities to the poor) given the fact that this is done by charging the same poor people a high interest rate on Payday loans (which is what keeps them poor) to support such a programme just does not sit right; and running an ICO to get cash to issue payday loans ⌠none of this is very clear from their initial white paper btw.
More detailed information to follow, again, Iâm not stating that this is a scam, but this is a seriously questionable project from my point of view.
1 Like
Monetize Coin
Site: https://monetizecoin.com/
White paper: https://monetizecoin.com/whitepaper/whitepaper.pdf
Bitconnect, Davor coin, PoWH, PoWH3D ⌠etc.
This seems to fall straight into the same category. Some immediate red flags:
- They promise daily returns, up to 40% monthly on an investment of 100USD, thatâs a daily interest rate of +1% which is simply impossible to achieve without a ponzi or pyramid scheme. (which is on their website but not explained in the white paper)
- There is no owner information, period. This is a huge red flag, irrespective of their claims of avoiding legal problems. If your company was legitimate and the platform is legitimate there is no reason to fear legal problems. In their whitepaper they claim to do this because âcryptocurrency should be anonimousâ ⌠roflmao
- In their lending system they lock in the cash (despite what they claim on their website, it is stated in their white paper).
- They have an active referral system = Ponzi scheme, no need to look further. They are paying incentives on signing more people up in a pretty straight forward pyramid scheme structure.
- Monetize Coin says theyâre a company that has a lot of money â millions, according to them â in revenue. If such claims are true in any way, why would they need money from unknown people?
- They also claim that they create external revenue with the use of an âautomated traffic arbitrage systemâ; Supposedly, the Monetize Bot automated traffic arbitrage system exists since 2008, back then it was developed for an online casino, the idea started when developers and an online marketer gathered and set the first steps for the software.
- The fact that Monetize Coin has such a powerful bot would mean that they donât need to be doing anything else but living off this magical bot. Yet, they still need people âs investments? Something doesnât ring quite right here.
My advice, do NOT invest in these types of programs, yes, early adopters might make it to the top of the pyramid (and most likely those are the people behind the platform) and make a decent to high amount of money until the project collapses. In order for any pyramid scheme / ponzi scheme of this nature to work you would need an infinite number of participants; which doesnât exist on this planet.
Hereâs my full write up:
1 Like
SaveDroid
Site: https://ico.savedroid.com/
Whitepaper: https://ico.savedroid.com/savedroid-ico-whitepaper.pdf
Yes, I would put that in this category.
Post ICO the company shut down their website, their telegram group and their office in Germany. The CEO disappeared and posted on Twitter that it was all over, showing pictures of him at the airport and on some beach in Egypt (beer in hand).
All communication stopped and most of the people associated with the project could not be contacted. The CEO had a speaking engagement at a blockchain conference (?) to which he didnât show up.
After more than 24 hours they returned and claimed this was a marketing stunt, as this sort of thing happens often in the ICO world. And then went on to state that they want to advise others on how to do ICOs (can you get more narcissistic?).
Whether a really poorly designed, ill conceived marketing stunt or an exit scam gone wrong (they may have gotten cold feet) doesnât really matter; the damage to investor confidence and the general public was done and they did additional damage to the trust in ICOs in general.
They may be a legitimate project, but I would not invest in any team that thinks this was a good idea after just raising 4.5M USD in funds.
1 Like
I am terrible at writing. I have looked at MIXIN token (XIN). Could you please confirm that this is absolutely an unbelievably waste of money! I can not even affirm why anyone would invest in this what I think to be scam. You have a fantastic ability in producing quality content IMO.
Thanks.
OldNew
Karl is given name
Thank You,
Your creative writing style is perfect for covering an area that is desperately needed in this industry. I honestly do not know why you do not have your own site warning people of these dangers? Many people lose hard earned money on scams and false claimed projects. I myself appreciate your time and wanted to thank you personally, I looked at MIXIN and can not see why any reasonable person would invest a single cent. It even has downloads for what I understand to be incomplete apps? UnbelievableâŚThanks again
Thank you very much 
I actually write about blockchain technology but started to realise that I need to expand this with scams since I come across so many; so Iâll start elaborating on these. You can find me here: https://steemit.com/@iwan.spillebeen
We are also adding this on my companieâs page going forward: http://blockchainlabs.ai/newsarticles/
And we are adding podcasts (http://michaelwaitzepresents.com/ and the Asia Tech Podcast http://www.atp.show/) and distribution on LinkedIn to start reaching as many people as possible (I already retweet / relink / reFB the stuff that I write but weâre gradually getting this out to a wider user base).
Iâll take a deeper look at Mixin tomorrow (03/05/18), thus far I would say youâre absolutely right, their website has literally no information on it, neither does their FB, but I donât want to jump to conclusions too quick. Iâll edit this post tomorrow so that the information stays consistent and it stays easy for people to scroll through the list.
CryptoTab
Site: https://getcryptotab.com/en/
Whitepaper: none
Not necessarily a scam but something to watch out for if you are new to the cryptocurrency space. CryptoTab is a browser extension that a user needs to install that supposedly allows the user free mining of BTC and as per their own claims: âBecome a part of a huge mining pool! The bigger the poolâs computing power is, the bigger blocks can be solved, the more money you can earn! Invite most active friends of yours, who will in turn invite their own friends and start making real money! Get more than 1 BTC per month!â
Red flags:
- Mining one bitcoin per month or more by simply using one PC and one browser plugin is simply impossible, even if you combine a vast number of computers in the world, the BTC reward of mining a block will still need to be split among all. I.e. they cannot live up to their claim.
- The plug in may contain malware, that can steal personal information from your PC (such as checking for BTC private keys)
- They do pay-out, however the amounts Iâve seen in terms of pay-out are extremely low, mostly below 0.00001 BTC, which would mean your computer processing power and electric costs will not be covered.
- Itâs all about the referral programme! You can refer as many friends and family as youâd like and youâll start to earn more, more and more ⌠up to 10 (yes TEN) layers in their referral programme. And that puts them straight into a pyramid scheme heaven. Level 10 would mean 60 million people would have to participate and those at the bottom obviously canât earn any money; while those at the top (the creators) get the bulk of the mining proceeds.
- You need to sign in using social media.
While they have a pay-out page, it is obviously impossible to validate whether this payout is to a real person or their own fake accounts (since its public keys only) and due to the fact that it is a pyramid scheme (not ponzi, youâre not directly investing, youâre indirectly investing your PC life and your electricity) I would highly recommend against using this plugin; it simply isnât worth it.
Stepium
Website: https://stepium.com/
Whitepaper: donât make me laugh 
And yet another pyramid scheme:
1 Like
You are performing a valuable function in this space. Too many others pump, few research and expose faults in offerings and even current tokens and coins. If only coins and tokens could be frozen when there is concrete evidence they are a fraud or an extreme danger to investors. Well done.
1 Like
LendConnect / Etherlink
I was going to write about this project, but like Bitconnect, Davor Coin, PoWH, and all other lending platforms, this has now caved in onto itself. If you were considering investing in this ⌠DONâT.
If someone still wants me to do a write up on how to identify these types of scams, just let me know.
FederalCoin
This is an alert, Iâm not going to classify it as a scam just yet but since many people I know (myself included) have been receiving LinkedIn inmail to participate in this ICO I did some digging and wanted to share my findings.
You may receive a mail on LinkedIn with the following content:
"thank you for joining my world!
It has been my pleasure to confirm your friend request
and iâm happy for our connection
If youâre interested in Cryptocurrencies and especially in ICO´s,
i got a huge gift for you.
Weâre launching the first ever ICO of a German federal bank in a few weeks."
So I said sure, tell me more , response:
"this will be the biggest ICO ever, made in Germany!
The whitepaper will be available soon.
I can arrange 60% friends&family bonus for you, BEFORE the pre-launch starts with 40% bonus.
The official ICO will start with the public pre-sale and 40% Bonus in a few weeks.
I know the CEO very well and can arrange 10% referral commission for you if you refer investors.
Are you interested?"
So I said, sure, mail me the whitepaper:
"the secret link to download the whitepaper:
http://federalcoin.de/whitepaper/whitepaper_federalcoin.pdf
user: summer2018
pass: exchange
Are you interested to get the friends&family bonus? "
You can read the whitepaper yourself if you like using the âsecretâ link above, hereâs a recap of my findings:
- For starters, noboby and I mean absolutely nobody needs a secret link for a whitepaper! A whitepaper should be public and should be transparent. While I can understand that you may not want to disclose some of your project details to the general public (investors under NDA, partnerships under NDA) there is zero reason for a secret link. ever. You are trying to raise money from the public (or that is what you should be trying to do); so this immediately screams to me that somethings not 100%.
- The website is virtually non-existing: http://federalcoin.de/ it has literally zero information in it.
- The whitepaper has team members blurred out, again no logical reason to do so, especially since youâre only distributing this via secret link.
- The two members that do exists, exist on LinkedIn but neither seem to have any prior experience before starting this venture. Theyâve only ever been in this venture for the last 7-8 months.
- Other team members are completely unknown, no names are given and images have been blurred out.
- No previous blockchain nor FinTech experience with anyone on the team
- They claim a connection to a German bank but refuse to share the name of the bank; and from their profiles theyâve never worked in banking or FinTech.
- They claim to have highly experienced programmers, but refuse to name them / show their picture
- They refer to themselves as being trusted (a lot) but donât offer anything to subscribe such trust.
- They plan to raise 50M USD, (1 ERC20 token = 1 USD), since theyâre launching an ERC20 token this means that all they are developing is an app to allow users to pay at retail outlets (undisclosed retail outlets). So theyâre raising USD 50M for app development and marketing, thatâs one expensive app.
- They plan on issuing a total of 150M tokens but provide zero details about the date / time / value of the remaining 100M tokens, which means that your initial investment may rapidly depreciate if they flood the market with 2x the amount of available tokens at a lower valuation.
- They have a seed phase - 60% discount and a pre-ICO phase -40% discount but from what I can see they plan to offer all 50M tokens at the -60% phase and to roll-over the unsold tokens to the next phase.
- So if all are sold at 60% discount, they only raise 20M? What is the actual funds they require?
- Discounts only work if you actually have a benefit, if everyone buys the 50M tokens at -60% then nobody gets a discount since everyone will have bought at the same rate.
- There is no soft cap listed anywhere
- There is no description of development fund and actual usage of funds, they do provide percentages but since all tokens can be sold at -60% it is unclear if those are based on raising 20M USD or 50M USD
- Because its all a secret they obviously donât exist on ICO rating sites.
One plus, the company has effectively been registered in December 2017: https://www.kompany.ch/p/de/hrb28678%20essen
Iâm not saying the project is a scam, but there simply isnât enough tangible information to make a decision, crucial information is either missing, redacted or purposely not disclosed.
This whitepaper requires some serous review and revision and a truckload of tangible information. As such I would strongly advise against investing in this project at this stage.
Thanks in advance,
Iwan
1 Like
Nice article. No one wishes to have their dream crushed so letâs all enjoy the notion of decentralization shall we?
1 Like
BicoinDark
Added from this topic: https://forum.toshitimes.com/t/bitcoin-dark-an-exercise-for-everyone/5845/2
Where to begin âŚ
- Send us your Bitcoin and convert them into BitcoinDark (BCC ⌠err ⌠BTCD) first red flag.
- The pay out is in USD, not bitcoin, nor BCC, nor BTCD ⌠thatâs a second red flag.
- FAQ: 1) When will the lending interest be added to my account?
It will be added every 24 hours of your lending transaction has been approved. All lending transactions will be treated separately for interest payments.Read more ⌠clicking the link sends you back to the very same page, no extra info provided. - FAQ: 2) I usually get a daily profit from lending but why there is no interest payment received today?
The daily profit is not guaranteed. The interest rate that you earn daily using our investment platform is calculated by our BitCoinDark Price Volatility Software and accrued daily. Some days, the profit may be 0%.Read more âŚclicking the link sends you back to the very same page, no extra info provided - FAQ: all links just go back to the same page.
- FAQ: BitcoinDark trading bot and volatility software.: the link sends you back to the same page
- Any system that has a trading bot but doesnât want to explain how it works is suspect
- Any time I read âvolatility software âŚâ I get suspicious.
- About us section doesnât contain any information on who they are, zero. Just a link to the same 3 articles which are all articles from their own website
- They are moving all BTCD to Komodo, literally all, so BTCD will be worthless in a short amount of time.
- Theyâre using delayed Proof of Work (dPoW).
- Their website contains zero information, even their article on Bitcoin is only two paragraphs long, not even a single link to the BTC whitepaper or the 1000s of articles written on BTC by now.
- All links to their news are linking back to the same website, they couldnât even be bothered to provide external links and make it believable.
- Promises of daily return on investment
From their guide: 1. First, you must create an account on the bitcoindark.life page
(go to the bitcoindark.life page, root on the right side of the screen, press the register button)
You fill out the registration form
(Referral only for your Referrerâs name on âThis section is related to the issue of payouts under the link of the future referrersâ).
For example, if A introduces the B into the group, then A will get 10% of the total investment of the B, and next, if the B introduces the C into the group, B will also get 10%. total investment of the C, and the A will now also enjoy 5% of the total investment of the C
= Pyramid scheme - From their guide: So thatâs ok, we have a $ 500 investment package and enjoy 1% every day for 180 days.
= Ponzy scheme
Nobody, absolutely nobody can guarantee a 1% return on investment on a daily basis. If you have a trading bot that can generate a 1% return on investment every day you donât need other peoples money, you invest 1,000 USD and youâre set for life through compound interest.
Itâs an absolute scam.
My advice, walk nay run away. Actually run away faster than that!
This is equal to Bitconnect, DavorCoin, Ryse, etc. etc.
2 Likes
Bitei
I would say this is even worse than Bitconnect.
The premise is easy, you send them 0.5 BTC to their wallet and they will pay a 20% bonus on a daily basis for the next 5 days!
Donât miss out on this incredible offer! ⌠NOT
But wait there is more! They are offering a special incentive right now where your 0.5 BTC will be turned into 1 BTC within 12 hours!
The facts:
- Zero data on who is behind the scam, of course, they just want to walk away with your money.
- Zero information on their so called technology, which, letâs be very clear does not exist.
- Whitepaper ⌠not needed.
- On their Pay-out section they show supposed payouts to people that have participated, with the public keys of the participants. So a quick check shows this address, which they have listed: 1F7iSCQZpKezGC6C6jPDASibFQNEzyL8WV to which they have supposedly paid 1.54634 BTC
if you then look into the block explorer for the movement on that address you will notice that no such payment actually exists: https://www.blockchain.com/en/btc/address/1F7iSCQZpKezGC6C6jPDASibFQNEzyL8WV because, well it is a scam after all, they couldnât even be bothered to set up a fake payment to themselves. - Donât believe me? Check any address in that list and youâll see that none of the payments exist.
This is a SCAM, pure and simple. All they are trying to do is get BTC holders to send them 0.5 BTC each and then walk away with your money.
Ivy hello this is Ada I wanted to touch base with you about a concern as to JoinGrowth yes they did fall out a bit well more like pulled back after having many of the tokens they made scammed form them and everyone dipping into the pull But the main reason was a medical one and the person that took the token was the same guy that original made them for them. They did not just up and leave however the same guy that took them for the token and lots of money was the same that had control of the social media pages. I was the attorney on Paper for JojnGrowth and i assure you there was no foul pay they were just in over their heads without knowing enough about the cryptocurrency world. You had an attorney myself, my husband and a Computer engineer all ready to continue however the guy with the knowledge dumped us and took everything. Joingrowth has still been in the educational field and decided to pay more attention to the kids then the crypto at the time. I am only glad that we own the JoinGrowth name and that the gentleman now back in Brazil had nothing that he could really use to continue . Now with that being said We have decided to try and move forward now and you were a particle right education to the needy and have to be free to work. My family and I are all License teachers and attorneys and Pastors here in Mexico born and raised and that is where we have decided to concentrate on. I know that the failed attempt the first time and problems we ran into will be obstacles to overcome, Howber I myself nor my family would feel comfortable to give it another shot under any other name. I feel that would be a poor choice and unfair to the people. We need to learn a lot and still have a lot to learn. We need more than ever now to educate the children stuck at home which my sister and I along with our mother have been doing. For two years we have been in the field for roughly about 10 years ourself and our partners over 20 with acaully schools in Mexico. So I wanted to touch base because I read this while going through an old email of my husband and thought it best one to apologize to you for leaving you out there and not being able to get back to you. And to let you know that we have learned a lot and we are coming back with a vengeance and hope that you will take a look at what we are going forth with this time and we do have it all planned out and it is working . We have combined the education for free online. We only have 4 classe starting this month coming but that is four more than what was there last time and we have decided to do it through our new social media platform which is an open sourced network including international wire transfer . Now that brings me to a point. You mentioned the payday loans and if you are wrong My husband has been in the business for ten years and working for a bank doing just that and they are integrading crypto into the program because they found that they could do it a lot cheaper. He just has a hard time explaining himself to medical problems. But he has a great heart he just canât spit it out sometimes, So we have the social media platform which is opened sourced we pride ourself in the right to remain anonymous and we are very much against what we have seen in social media with the selling of personal information and violations of the human rights that they make you sign away when you create accounts with them. We decided why not give people an area where they can protect their rights and learn about cryptocurrencies and educate themselves at the same time. Aws for the students going to classes for free. That was also the goal last time we didnât plan to charge them. There are classes offered by others in the program that they charged for what we have decided to do ourselves would be to pay for them out of pocket. We will be paying our online teacher that are part of the join growth program so the student do not have to worry about that. Our way of given back.
Now we will have online christine classes and regular school classes and also we are at their time looking for a few crypto professionals that would like to help out in that area. The international wire transfers are being done as we speak and where we live we have a large expat community that love the savings, I will get into that in our whitepaper which will be a lot more clear and trust me your advice was taken to heart however the medical conditions of the husband and the level of stress from the fund put out last time wore on him. But he as not stopped learning since the first failed attempt and like i said would love to touch base with you and have you look over the plans we have honest educated partners backing us we believe we are in the right area of crypto with the blockchain with went with for what we are doing and we have even figured out how the students iâll go to school for free and make have money saved up before they finish to get them the start they need in the world Now iâm not the crypto girl so i wonât try to explain here I am still having my coffee but if you would like to hit me up would love to hear from you [email protected]