Dumpcry’s Diary [18/01/29 – 18/02/04]

You didn't beg for it but I will deliver anyway, here is the only weekly recap you need.

Dumpcry’s Diary is your new weekly dose of desolation.

Bitcoin crash & Media FUD

How are you fellow cryptotraders? Since the memorable ATH that occurred 1 month ago, we are getting continuously stabbed by the markets. Hodl tight though, because the fight is not over. It could go lower, but I don't see the price to cross the 5k line. It could stay more or less still around 7/8k, and that would actually be a satisfying scenario, or it could go up thanks to the futures beings advertized, RobinHood being crypto enabled, the gods of cryptos being merciful, I don't know...

So the hot question is: why? What is the cause of this seemingly never-ending panic? Let's see how the media talked about this new revolutionary technology last week.

Forbes

"Definitely great if you live in a country that is repressed or run by a dictator, less clear at this stage for noncriminal enterprises in countries with high degrees of personal freedom."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petertchir/2018/02/02/bitcoin-is-going-below-5000/#4f2274b7615e

Fortune

"a miserable 2018 continued for cryptocurrencies, with investors confronting a mounting list of concerns about the future of the industry."

http://fortune.com/2018/02/02/bitcoin-bubble-burst-trouble/

"Nouriel Roubini of Roubini Macro Associates said Bitcoin is the “biggest bubble in human history” and this “mother of all bubbles” is finally crashing".

http://fortune.com/2018/02/02/bitcoin-bubble-nouriel-roubini/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-02/roubini-says-bitcoin-is-the-biggest-bubble-in-human-history

BBC

"Tech Tent: Will crypto-crime end the Bitcoin bubble?"

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42917172

The Guardian

"Bitcoin biggest bubble in history, says economist who predicted 2008 crash".

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/02/bitcoin-biggest-bubble-in-history-says-economist-who-predicted-2008-crash

CNBC

https://twitter.com/CNBCFastMoney/status/958883055334289413

- CNBCFastMoney

And there is so many more! Incredible, right? That is all what their outdated so-called experts can do: saying "it's a bubble" when it goes up and "the bubble is bursting, we told you" when it goes down. If only it was the first time. Absolutely not, it has been the same absurd habit for years.

2013

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessecolombo/2013/12/19/bitcoin-may-be-following-this-classic-bubble-stages-chart/#1a09049736b8

https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21590901-it-looks-overvalued-even-if-digital-currency-crashes-others-will-follow-bitcoin

http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/12/investing/bitcoin-bubble/index.html

http://fortune.com/2017/09/18/bitcoin-crash-history/

This one is amazing: http://www.businessinsider.com/williams-bitcoin-meltdown-10-2013-12 ("FINANCE PROFESSOR: Bitcoin Will Crash To $10 By Mid-2014")

2014

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10660188/Has-the-Bitcoin-Bubble-Burst.html

http://business.financialpost.com/business-insider/bitcoin-is-an-amazing-example-of-a-bubble-robert-shiller

http://www.weeklystandard.com/bitcoin-is-dead/article/784187

And so on...

To be honest, this is staggering. We have been many to denounce that coordinated FUD by traditional business-related media, outrageously lying about the hypothetical ban of cryptocurrencies in Korea (read below for the truth), Europe, India (here is the truth), or any country/region that showed signs of forthcoming regulations. In the meantime, very good news were ignored: Canadian ETF, China deploying crypto ATMs, South Korea's government enthusiasm for cryptos, Venezuela opens its arms to cryptos, even UK's Royal Mint is launching its own cryptocurrency. That's right, the UK will have its own official cryptocurrency but Forbes, Fortune, CNBC and all their friends won't talk about it because it is not part of their narrative. Maybe they need Bitcoin to be low to better shill the futures?

https://twitter.com/whalepool/status/960293587740176387

- whalepool

After Apex, The Bee Token

This last week was another week of ICO craziness. Among the trendiest ones was Bee, another project that promised many outstanding things while not being able to ensure the security of its funding process. So, some scammers sent fake emails to investors and they gathered 1 million $USD this way. The pinnacle of this fail fest was when the CEO had to apply the same degrading procedure as Apex (see my previous week's article) in order to officially confirm the correct contract address.

https://twitter.com/thebeetoken/status/958842190825971717

- thebeetoken

Seele

But this week was the scene of much more fantastic events. Seele, the "Blockchain 4.0" I was making fun of last week, conducted its ICO without apparent issue until their team discovered that a good part of the invested Ethereum was sent to a scam address. This time, no fake email or basic Telegram spam was involved, but rather a very smart take over of the Telegram group.

For real, I'm very impressed by this scam. This is fucking pro (and also very amateurish from Seele's part). Once they were granted admin rights, the scammers could do anything they want in a very official way. And they did. First, they modified the pinned message to include their accounts, then they concluded presale deals with a few people. Among the scammed was Peter, the leader of a pool that was aiming to profit from an amazing deal: 15% off if he sends the whole amount of 1462 ETH right now haha

Note that Peter his concluding a 1.5 million $USD deal on Telegram from his cellphone. That's amazing.

So, Peter just got scammed but he doesn't know yet.Since many dudes missed that formidable opportunity, he tries to get a greater allocation and manages to seal another deal with the scammer: if he does another pool, he gets a 25% discount on both of them!

Fortunately, the participants finally got aware of the situation and the second attempt was aborted. However, The scammers went away with not less than 2 million $USD.

Fake stars

The last week was also an intense week of scams on Twitter. Many fake accounts of the most popular cryptotweetos popped up here and there. The drill is always identical: the fake celebrity (@rogerkwer instead of @rogerkver, @VitaliikButeri instead of @VitalikButerin, etc.) says that he is organizing a giveaway, giving XX tokens to the first XX persons sending X tokens to a selected address. And even if it is a blatant scam (a giveaway where you have to send money first???), it works! No crazy amounts there, but it clearly worths the amount of work engaged in this.

https://twitter.com/rogerkwer/status/959880329329872899

- rogerkwer

Conclusion: various facts

• ArcBlock successfully concluded their ICO (37 500 ETH) and they were happy like if they just ate a pizza, a 40M $ pizza.

• Sentinel, the "affordable and secure financial services", has been hacked during its KYC process. Everyone who participated now has his personal information stolen (metadata + documents).
• Legolas ICO was a huge success. We all hope that they will deliver, since it's a French team, you know.
• Bitfinex'ed is getting FUDed by Whalepool.

https://twitter.com/whalepool/status/960207497515749377

• I just started a BTC long, wish me luck [UPDATE: EEEEEK]

See you next Sunday!