by Morpheus Titania
Recently I was asked to look at a crypto-currency by a very good friend and business partner. He knows that I had been doing Bitcoin for a while and wanted to get me involved with his “opportunity”. The Opportunity is called OneCoin. On the surface it is a MLM marketing scheme that revolves around a “crypto-currency”. Below the surface Onecoin is a very elaborate Ponzi SCAM!
I have done some MLM marketing “programs” in my life and some of them are legitimate mechanisms to sell products for upstart companies. Others are mechanisms for selling overpriced products and Christianity at the same time. Others are simply SCAM’s. The first MLM I did was a company many of us have heard about called Amway. I was very excited about the Amway opportunity when I was doing it. I shared it with everyone I knew. I sponsored a fair amount of people and I listened to hundreds of Success Tapes. I made some money, however most of the money made was poured back into my “education” for success. I would say that much of my attitude today is a result of listening to all those tapes.
Now those that know me would know that I am an opportunity hound. I love looking at new possibilities. In the past, I would get excited about opportunities however after loosing 21 Bitcoins or the equivalent of $8000 in 2016 Federal Reserve Notes in a SCAM known as PokerAm.com and also loosing 12.5 Bitcoins in another SCAM known as Maxizzy.com , I am learning to scrutinize Bitcoin and crypto-currency related “opportunities” much more closely. I will explain some smoking guns and what to look for when evaluating a Bitcoin / crypto-currency “opportunity”.
One of the lessons I have learned over the years is that with every cloud, comes a silver lining. These short term expensive lessons can lead to long term pleasure, by being able to look at the errors in my thinking that led me to making unwise choices. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed however I do like to learn from my mistakes. I realize in life I am going to be making mistakes. It is my intention, however, to make new mistakes and not to make the same mistakes over and over. None of us have ever lived in the digital age before and we are all going to make mistakes existing in this new “operating system” or environment. Unfortunately for us, there is a breed of people that are going to want to capitalize on these mistakes and scam people, i.e. Mark Kapellas and Mt. Gox., PokerAM.com and Maxizzy.com
There are many things about the Digital age / Bitcoin / Crypto-currency world we now live in that are very different from the Industrial age many of us grew up in. I am in my 50’s now. Being more mature, I have an advantage over the younger crowd of being able to have a little more perspective on things. I also have an advantage from the crowd that is older than me. By diving into the digital age headfirst I have been able to financially support myself completely by being a Bitcoin trader for the past 2 years. I only work when people pay me in Cash or Bitcoin. No exceptions. Even with this experience, I still was taken in these scams. Thus, have gained wisdom on this financial journey.
I became interested in Bitcoin after a friend of mine took the time to explain the technology to me and a group of other friends. After the talk, it was blatantly obvious to me that I needed to get involved in Bitcoin. Satoshi Nakamoto created a solution that solved a problem in the digital world. Namely, in a de-centralized network, how can only one person control a digital token at any one time? His solution produced a global accounting system that could not be counterfeited and didn’t even involve the excessively expensive central authority known as the Federal Reserve. Satoshi’s innovation can not be understated: he used a relatively simple solution to solve a previously unsolvable, complex, problem.
The difference between a (Politician / Lawyer / University Professor / Scam artist) and an entrepreneur is: a (Politician / Lawyer / University Professor / Scam artist) takes something that is very simple and makes it very complex; and a entrepreneur takes something that is very complex and makes it very simple.
After I learned about Bitcoin, I had to buy some. I went to localBitcoins.com and acquired about $600 in Bitcoin at the time was $38 with the sellers markup. After I bought my first bitcoins I distinctly said to myself “I’m going to make a million dollars with this.” I created my own ad on http://localBitcoins.com. I mentioned I was a reputable seller and quickly I got my first customer. I didn’t have to sign anyone up for $5000 to buy my product! They gave me cash and I sold them an asset. Simple…not complex. That was great. Then another customer. Now I had to restock my supply, just like every other business does. I had given birth to a new Business! Wow, this was exciting! I was blown away! I was able to start a brand new business in a brand new industry. All it took was recognizing there was a need and making myself available to service hungry customers.
Onecoin, on the other hand, has pricing established in a way that demonstrates the ones running the show are the ones setting the price for Onecoin. My friend, who showed me Onecoins “price” on my friends back-office and on site called http://xcoinx.com/ somewhat obliviously run by Onecoin to show the “price” to new marks yet to be recruited in this Scam. Red Flag! You can’t buy these coins on any exchange. Supposedly this is because they are not making them available to the public yet. Ah, another red flag!
So lets got through the list of what are to me smoking guns, my mother would always say “where there is smoke, there is fire!” My first indication was a few months ago I remembered seeing an ad that touted the Onecoin and how it was created by one Dr. Ruja Ignatova. I blew it off as it looked like a scam at first glance. When my friend showed me Onecoin, and then videos show the SUPER SMART Dr. Ruja Ignatova the red flags started to go off. OneCoin’s Founder, Owner and Chief Operating Officer ‘Dr. Ruja Ignatova’ is an economist and has degrees from Oxford and worked for Harvard. She has created this crypto-currency that is private, centralized and proprietary…everything Bitcoin is NOT! Red flags!
At the same time Onecoin touts itself as being JUST like Bitcoin but BETTER. Anyone that knows the Bitcoin system would say, The Onecoin system is not related to Bitcoin in any way. Except perhaps they both have the word ‘coin’ in their name. Onecoin is a centralized digital currency, where Bitcoin is de-centralized and the Onecoin software is proprietary, not “open source” like Bitcoin. Red Flag! Onecoin provides for the tokens or onecoins to double in quantity without any loss of value somehow. This is understandable because Onecoin controls the value and can make them be worth whatever they want them to be worth. Anyone foolish enough to “signup” and PAY $500-$10,000 now get the privilege to agree on what the value of the Onecoin are with all the other fools who have paid money to agree on what the price ‘is”. In a closed system like Onecoin the central planners can assign whatever value they want to the coins. I feel quite assured if, and when, they open the Onecoins to the actual market, those that paid $500-$10000 will find their coins are worth close to NOTHING!
They then state how everyone who wasn’t in Bitcoin from the beginning had “missed the boat” because now the price of Bitcoin is too high to make any money. Red flag! Nothing could be further from the truth. According to the Onecoin pitch, now that Bitcoin is $500+ you have missed the boat and its time to get on the newer, more improved, boat. The reality is that their boat is really a log and has lots of fancy paint on it. I asked my friend if he could get his money out of Onecoin and he said that he didn’t want to because they have him convinced he will loose out if he does. He said that the centralized system that makes Onecoin is going to double the number of Onecoins he has and he wouldn’t want to miss out. This is a typical con Job. If you are in the Onecoin SCAM, get your money out now! If your “investment” needs to “mature” in the crypto-currency world these are more Red Flags!
I predict if at any point these OneCoins are released on the open market we will see the true value of them will be close to zero. The key reason being the only thing that supports this system is the continual process of signing people up in a sequential recruitment. The Money is made from all the suckers who believe the half truths the “Economist” Dr. Ruja Ignatova and her Scam marketing team can come up with.
You haven’t missed the boat in regards to Bitcoin. Actually, the Bitcoin mining reward is set to reset from 25 coins to 12.5 coins on July 10,2016. The last time this occurred was on November 28, 2012. The price of Bitcoin at that time was $12.26. One year and a day later November 29 2013 the price of Bitcoin was $1151. That is a swing of 92 times! Were that scenario to repeat, the price of Bitcoin would be about $41,000. If Bitcoin is valued at $41,000 how many would you want to have? Easy answer is: AT LEAST ONE!
