Anatomy of a SCAM -- BTC2
Alright, so I feel the urge to drop in and tell the STEEM community, in case you were considering...
DO NOT BUY BTC2!
I know it maybe tempting to see a fresh new top 100 coin on CMC. It's zooming up the charts! It's red hot! But wait... What the heck is it? It got up to a $457 million market cap on June 7, 2019... It must be THE REAL BITCOIN!
Wait a minute! I remember how this one goes...
Yeah, that's what they want you to believe. Whoever "they" is wants you to FOMO into this scamcoin. Their website is literally 2 pages and somehow it got to a half-billion dollar valuation? I don't get it.
From their Github, they say "Bitcoin 2 is an experimental digital currency that enables nearly instant, private payments to anyone, anywhere in the world." But on their website, it is emphasized that it is a "scalable Bitcoin fork supporting truly anonymous and instantly verified transactions."
At least we know where the huge market cap came from! Most of that supply came from a chain fork of BTC on approximately February 5, 2018 at block 507850. I seriously doubt most of those coins have been claimed. And yet still Coinmarketcap is reporting a circulating supply of 17,288,923 BTC2. WHY????
According to its BitcoinTalk thread, it was only listed on CMC on May 28. It started pumping less than 10 days later. That's not suspicious at all!
But let's review some other suspicious elements so that this great STEEM community can be on the lookout the inevitable next time this type of activity happens in crypto:
First, anything that 12X's in a week... That's not natural. Not even the greatest startups in the history of the world - think Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Quantfury - experience that kind of growth. That's because it's impossible. Unless you are really, really small, like you just grew 10 users to 120 users... in that case, you could grow 1200% in a week. No problem! 🤗
Second, just take a look at this chart from the past day:
That little Bart Simpson's head-shaped pattern that emerged in the middle of the night? Yeah, that's not natural. In fact, it virtually screams market manipulation. It's even a widely recognized meme in the wider crypto community. 😩
-Third, let's look at the exchange. Crex24 is right now the 130th ranked exchange according to the adjusted volume on CMC. Not exactly a stalwart exchange, especially knowing the industry propensity to fake volume. But still, we need to look at the liquidity on the big dogs - BTC and ETH - and that's where things get weird:
What the heck are these coins? And more importantly, why do they have more volume on this exchange than bitcoin and ethereum? This BTC2 pump seems to be bringing in more than 1/6 of the total volume for the exchange, while BTC and ETH combined are less than 1/10. Not a good sign. 🤔
- Fourth, high yield equals high risk. In nearly every investment opportunity, you really need to be suspect of a) any investment that touts a "high" annual ROI prominently in its investment literature (Those people are literally high! No investment can be guaranteed whatsoever) and b) any investment that is highlighting such outlandish returns as this:
It's just too much. In the traditional asset world, 10%-plus is considered a high-risk "junk" bond. I guess the threshold could be moved up a little bit higher in the bass ackwards crypto world, but up to 56%? Up to you, really, but I'm gonna stay firmly within the realm of reality, with at least one foot on the ground... like a good finance prof. 🤓
There's probably a thousand other red flags, but that's enough to stop right there and never consider investing in this thing again! So let's review, when trying to spot crypto scams, you gotta look for and avoid like the plague:
- Face-melting vertical moves. Anything more than a double is highly suspect.
- BART patterns. Watch the Simpsons on Disney+, don't buy their boy's hair pattern charts!
- Illiquid scam exchanges. Don't let the siren song of profits allow you to expose yourself to undue risk.
- High yield = high risk. Always and forever. Amen.
I hope you enjoyed this little detour into the dirty side of crypto. So be safe out there, guys, and
As always, PEACE! ✌🏼
there are always so many scam projects or malicious ponzi schemes all over the world, making more people feel bad about crypto...
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Yeah, that's why I feel it's important to quickly call them out when we see them. If we let the scammers take over crypto, then the whole world will throw the baby out with the bathwater!
Yeah right, that makes no sense, the world is going to throw away their bitcoin because some idiots got scammed! lol
Not bitcoin but blockchain in general. 100% of the people in the world could benefit from it, but 99% of the people in the world think it’s a scam. We’ve got to make that 2nd number lower.
Dude, you can’t downvote me on everything! Don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical to be downvoting bid bots while at the very same time you upvote yourself with abandon?
Like chill, man... People should be able to use their STEEM as they wish. It’s their money.
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Aren't I using it as I wish. O.K. fine. I'm done downvoting everybody for using bidbots. That was enough, I'm over it. It was too much work. I need to move back onto something more productive. I'll leave steemit up to all you to do whatever with your steem! See I guess it was all meant to work out! Thanks for convincing me! Everyone else may thank you too! I switched it to upvote, you were right, those ScamCoin peeps are scamming the market with fake bids! So there is some scam going on with them.
Also I don't vote myself with abandon, how could I my VP is still so low from voting for everybody else for the last few years! I only voted a few of my comments so people would see them at the top of your post! lol
I have to thank @broncnutz for his perspective on this. We all like STEEM, so it is only natural for us to want more of it. As long as using bidbots is profitable, we kind of owe it to ourselves to take advantage of the amazing compound growth opportunity they offer.
I also want to thank @john371911 for pointing out a couple facts that made me think this way as well. 1) Bidbots lock up A LOT of STEEM, which reduces the supply on the market. That’s good for price! 2) People should have the right to pay to advertise their posts, i.e. LOSE money on the bidbots in order to make sure they get to the “Hot” and “Trending” sections. If you aren’t able to do that, it becomes very difficult to have people see your stuff and therefore get new followers. The scotbot networks are solving this problem via the “Promoted Post” (I think it costs 200 SCT to do it on steemcoinpan) and maybe that’s a feature that Steemit Inc should consider! Promoted Post fees are burned, which would reduce supply, and would be positive for price!
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I know, that is great news! I was just out of pot and mad taking it out on everybody! Sorry!!
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Yeah, but "scam" is not the right word because I'm sure the tech behind it really does do something. Flagged! It may be junk, but not a scam. They do have a blockchain right, that is better than the dollar. The dollar is a scam right?? BTC2 is better than the dollar right?? I don't have any BT2 and don't plan on it, but under your rationality, STEEM is a scam too, you must be a BTC maximalist like me!
Things don’t go up 25x in a day, dude. That is 100% a scam. You are high on WEED.
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Difference is I did nit insult you, just stated facts and you have nothing but insults, so I see how u are, so now that is why I am about to insult you at the end if this!
Nope, not high on weed, high on CBD! I'm out of weed! lol been out for a week! I was just telling you to choose better more accurate words than a scam. To me, your post was more of a scam and your last comment was definitely a scam then! You are a scam because you grew 25X in one day at one point too! The universe is a scam because it came from a speck that grew more than 25% in one tick tock, so I just proved you are an idiot! Thanks!
Not an insult, sir. Don’t you have a lot of WEED? i.e. the scot that powers weedcash.network...
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Yeah I got a lot of weed tokens, and a lot of smoke tokens, but just not a lot of dry pot, thanks!
Sorry for the bad joke then. I was referring to the tokens. That’s why I capitalized it!
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Tons of scams. HanseCoin is one of the few regulated and compliant ICOs that is also one of the first to tokenize hard assets on the blockchain.
I saw BTC2. I'm going to track it as if it actually adds utility to the blockchain space, its price will stabilize and it will eventually go higher.
It's been around since Feb 2018. The only reason it's pumping now is because it just got on CMC. You think it might have real utility? Seems to me like I would rather just have GRIN than rely on the BTC2 team to do the exact same thing GRIN is trying to do.
GRIN is viable. I am monitoring both.
Go here: www.hansecoin.com and download the whitepaper. Email us [email protected] for the presentation.
What is HanseCoin? Please tell us.
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