The unprecedented rise in cryptocurrency prices last year has spawned a whole new multi billion dollar market in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), a lot of which turn out to be scams. Miroskii, purportedly a China based ICO entity, appears to be the latest in a string of frauds and scams, with claims of imminent launch of a worthy cryptocurrency contender to Bitcoin proving to be bogus.
Image caption – Read the whitepaper, assess credibility and ask experts – don’t fall for ICO scams.
The scam came to light after netizens found a picture of acclaimed hollywood actor Ryan Gosling, listed as ‘lead developer’ of the project under a fake name. Later, pictures of other listed developers and team members were also found to be dupes, probably culled from sites online.
What’s more, with just seven followers across all of facebook, twitter and instagram combined, the scammers claim to have raised more than $8,30,000 in investments. Regardless of the veracity of the highly unlikely claim, it’s notable that a lot of similar ICO scams have already taken place, defrauding investors of their hard-earned money. Recent events like the discovery of Bitconnect running a ponzi scheme also don’t help much in improving the reputation of ICOs. While some want governments to regulate ICOs to prevent such frauds in the future, others are skeptical of state oversight and believe investors should be more sensible and smarten up. Just because a product bears the name of a famous actor–even if it is the suave and reassuring face of Ryan Gosling–think twice, or thrice before you spend your hard-earned money!
International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief says regulation is “inevitable”