In this post, I listed all my tokens/coins that had made some major error, radically lost value, stolen or defrauded people or something similar: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@bitbrain/diversify-your-portfolio-part-2-why-diversify
Today it is my unpleasant duty to add yet another coin to that list (two coins actually).
In a move rather reminiscent of what the Envion CEO did, Bruno Block, the owner of Oyster Protocol Inc, has solidly screwed all the Oyster Investors. There is no nice way of putting it.
Whereas with Envion there was at least a poor attempt at a cover up and a legality battle, this Oyster Protocol theft is so blatant that it's hard to believe.
What a pity when Oyster was just starting to take off and lead the return to a bull market! After reaching a low of $0.036 in mid August, Oyster Pearl managed to climb up to $0.26, a most remarkable increase! It then dipped slightly before climbing back to $0.23, with all indications that it was still climbing strongly.
And then Bruno Struck.
In what I can only describe as the single most selfish move I have ever seen in crypto, Bruno purposefully defrauded investors. Like with Envion, he created extra tokens (thought that isn't how the Envion theft took place). He created upwards of 3 million new tokens which he sold on KuCoin before he was able to be shut down. Bruno reportedly effectively stole about $300 000 of investors funds in this manner. His reasons (and here I paraphrase): "to protect his family from the upcoming major economic crash; to get out of crypto before ETH hits $2 and BTC hits $20; because everything is a ponzi and his investors are to blame for investing with him (you can't make this stuff up) and basically that he has a duty to protect his family and his investors don't matter".
What absolute scum! What a filthy little weasel! I also have a duty to protect my family Bruno, and I probably have a lot less money than what you do with which to achieve that goal. Thanks for taking my money to fund your own selfish agenda!
I swear to you Bit Brainians, if I meet guys like Bruno or Matthias Woestmann and his lawyers from Envion, I will not be able to contain my violent side. I will send them to hospital, end of story. 😡It's not just that they have stolen from me (which is bad enough), but they rub the name of crypto through the mud and chase potential future investors away.
Unfortunately for us, the anonymity of crypto that protects us in many ways, remains a stumbling block when people use it for nefarious purposes. The sad reality is that even the CEO of Oyster Protocol Inc (technically the ex-CEO, Bruno also told the CEO, William Cordes, that he is fired during one of his psychotic rants) does not know the true identity of Bruno Block.
Oyster's plan for the future is probably to do a 1:1 token swap of the Oyster Pearl Token (PRL) for a new token. Sadly, as I said earlier, there are actually two tokens to deal with here. Oyster has another related token: Oyster Shell (SHL). I am uncertain how SHL will be affected, if at all.
The $300k that Bruno stole represents only about 1.5% of the market cap, so it is by no means a death knell for Oyster, merely an inconvenient setback for a token that was just starting to do very well. Bruno is truly an idiot, had he executed his theft a few weeks (or months) from now, he could have stolen far more!
To date, Oyster remains the best solution I have seen, both for getting rid of adverts on webpages, as well as for mining crypto using the CPUs of visitors to websites - all in a legal, transparent and mutually beneficial manner. I really believe in their vision (which is why I invested in the first place).
I am fortunate to have invested only a very small amount in Oyster (though one could argue that all my coins are only worth very small amounts these days! 😅), though I am still angry. I know these things happen in the regular business world and I know scams are all over the place in crypto. But crypto is an emerging tech and it needs to gain a good reputatuion. As long as incidents like this continue to occur, incidents with good coins, it will be hard to build that reputation.
Once again my diversified strategy has saved me from a major loss, though one could also argue that it caused it. This will not be my last crypto coin to go belly-up, not by a long way, but it is never nice when it happens. I only hope that the return to green candles in this market sector with bring increased prosperity for all, negating the need for people to steal and preventing projects from crashing.
If you would like more information on this topic, here are some links. The first one contains screenshots of the fascinatingly selfish and deluded rantings of Bruno Block. Take a look, it's very interesting!
https://medium.com/oysterprotocol/oyster-update-10-31-c384696495d6
https://oysterprotocol.com/oyster-update/
Remember to always DYOR when investing and I strongly suggest that you diversify enough to protect your portfolio.
Yours in crooked crypto,
Bit Brain
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