One more ICO has disappeared, only five letters remain on its website.
Investing is always a risky business, where real money is at stake. And the ICO is also distinguished by the absence of excessive bureaucracy, as a result of which it is not only possible that it does not justify the hopes of the depositors, but also turns out to be a bogus.
Eight days after the launch of ICO, the Prodeum startup site, which was supposed to inject the blockchain into the production chains of fruits and vegetables, was removed. Users only have the word "penis". The company, according to the media, managed to sell tokens for 6 million American dollars.
There are doubts that the money was really able to attract. Let's figure it out.
The Prodeum startup had to revolutionize the food market through blockchain integration: each fruit and vegetable received an individual bar code that the customer could scan to find out all the details about this particular item. On the other hand, in this way, manufacturers and marketers could analyze the demand for products. According to the development plan in the Prodeum brochure , in April 2018 the first tests were to start in Lithuania, and in June 2018 - in the USA.
A startup for advertising a project bought inscriptions on the bodies of “models” and published them through Twitter’s post sale systems (or accounts). Below are a couple of obvious examples: users from Bangladesh and Kenya did not post their photos, but the accounts themselves have not been active for a long time - in the first case since September 2017, in the second - never. In this case, two photographs below and several more have been used repeatedly and in different accounts. In the Prodeum account, these photos were published as if they were sent by fans .
As people who doubt this success of the campaign write, the number of followers in the Prodeum Twitter account itself has not reached two hundred. And the first post with the #Prodeum hashtag, which can be seen on Twitter on January 29, is dated January 26. Pages on links that were promoted on Twitter now show an error , as well as pages that can be found in a search engine.
In Instagram on the same hashtag, you can find only 13 publications, and they all talk about fraud . In Facebook and Vkontakte - the same. It is strange that almost none of the users who bought tokens writes angry posts, especially since we are talking about ICO, an “advertising campaign” for which went through social networks.
In publications about fraud write about 6 million dollars stolen from unsuspecting users. At the same time , they refer to TokenDesk data - but the page is currently deleted. There is data on Icowatchlist : if you believe this data, you can see that the startup received 18% of the maximum planned amount - from 6 million, that is 1 million 20 thousand dollars.
A wave of news on fraud began on January 29 from a post on Reddit.
On the Prodeum before it was closed there was a mess with names and photos. But they used the photo not only from the photobank, but also from the pages of real people with their real names. One of the victims was Darius Rugevicius living in New York.
Press releases about the launch of the campaign were sent on behalf of Rokas Vedluga - this link contains one of the few remaining articles. Also, the post is preserved at 4chan , where we can see an anonymous comment from a user who allegedly wants to invest in the project, left to him on January 28, 2018.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2017 urged users to be attentive to the projects in which they invest and not to trust celebrities when choosing startups for ICO. First of all, the SEC advised to take three steps: to find and verify information about the company, including the license, and other people who recommend selling or buying tokens, using a search on Investor.gov ; examine all brochures, site materials, financial reports; weigh the pros and cons, calculate the possible risks.
There is no Prodeum startup in the SEC database, but we can find in it information about other ICOs that are under suspicion. Including - about the first legal case connected with the alleged fraud at ICO: the projects of Maxim Zaslavsky REcoin and DRC Worls (Diamond Reserve Club). The first one involved the provision of tokens with real estate, the second - with diamonds. According to the investigation, REcoin collected $ 300 thousand, while Zaslavsky told investors about the amount from $ 2 to $ 4 million.
Prodeum is not the first ICO dissolved in air. In November 2017, the startup Confido collected $ 374,000 in a couple of days and disappeared : including social network accounts. Profiles of the startup team members on LindekIn were fake . Fraudsters use the ICO to steal investors' funds in several ways , including proving their “prestige” using Photoshop.
Eight days after the launch of ICO, the Prodeum startup site, which was supposed to inject the blockchain into the production chains of fruits and vegetables, was removed. Users only have the word "penis". The company, according to the media, managed to sell tokens for 6 million American dollars.
There are doubts that the money was really able to attract. Let's figure it out.
The Prodeum startup had to revolutionize the food market through blockchain integration: each fruit and vegetable received an individual bar code that the customer could scan to find out all the details about this particular item. On the other hand, in this way, manufacturers and marketers could analyze the demand for products. According to the development plan in the Prodeum brochure , in April 2018 the first tests were to start in Lithuania, and in June 2018 - in the USA.
A startup for advertising a project bought inscriptions on the bodies of “models” and published them through Twitter’s post sale systems (or accounts). Below are a couple of obvious examples: users from Bangladesh and Kenya did not post their photos, but the accounts themselves have not been active for a long time - in the first case since September 2017, in the second - never. In this case, two photographs below and several more have been used repeatedly and in different accounts. In the Prodeum account, these photos were published as if they were sent by fans .
As people who doubt this success of the campaign write, the number of followers in the Prodeum Twitter account itself has not reached two hundred. And the first post with the #Prodeum hashtag, which can be seen on Twitter on January 29, is dated January 26. Pages on links that were promoted on Twitter now show an error , as well as pages that can be found in a search engine.
In Instagram on the same hashtag, you can find only 13 publications, and they all talk about fraud . In Facebook and Vkontakte - the same. It is strange that almost none of the users who bought tokens writes angry posts, especially since we are talking about ICO, an “advertising campaign” for which went through social networks.
In publications about fraud write about 6 million dollars stolen from unsuspecting users. At the same time , they refer to TokenDesk data - but the page is currently deleted. There is data on Icowatchlist : if you believe this data, you can see that the startup received 18% of the maximum planned amount - from 6 million, that is 1 million 20 thousand dollars.
A wave of news on fraud began on January 29 from a post on Reddit.
On the Prodeum before it was closed there was a mess with names and photos. But they used the photo not only from the photobank, but also from the pages of real people with their real names. One of the victims was Darius Rugevicius living in New York.
Press releases about the launch of the campaign were sent on behalf of Rokas Vedluga - this link contains one of the few remaining articles. Also, the post is preserved at 4chan , where we can see an anonymous comment from a user who allegedly wants to invest in the project, left to him on January 28, 2018.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2017 urged users to be attentive to the projects in which they invest and not to trust celebrities when choosing startups for ICO. First of all, the SEC advised to take three steps: to find and verify information about the company, including the license, and other people who recommend selling or buying tokens, using a search on Investor.gov ; examine all brochures, site materials, financial reports; weigh the pros and cons, calculate the possible risks.
There is no Prodeum startup in the SEC database, but we can find in it information about other ICOs that are under suspicion. Including - about the first legal case connected with the alleged fraud at ICO: the projects of Maxim Zaslavsky REcoin and DRC Worls (Diamond Reserve Club). The first one involved the provision of tokens with real estate, the second - with diamonds. According to the investigation, REcoin collected $ 300 thousand, while Zaslavsky told investors about the amount from $ 2 to $ 4 million.
Prodeum is not the first ICO dissolved in air. In November 2017, the startup Confido collected $ 374,000 in a couple of days and disappeared : including social network accounts. Profiles of the startup team members on LindekIn were fake . Fraudsters use the ICO to steal investors' funds in several ways , including proving their “prestige” using Photoshop.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/409957/