In a move that’s sure to draw the ire of ICO naysayers, a recent ICO has completely vanished after raising $347,000. The ICO, called Confido, sold tokens called CFD and claimed to offer ‘safe and trustless cryptocurrency payments.’
The site and the project’s subreddit have completely disappeared, leaving no trace of the funds or the founders. The alleged founder and president, Joost van Doorn, who was previously employed with eBay, posted a message to the company’s Reddit feed saying:
“We are in a tight spot, as we are having legal trouble caused by a contract we signed. We signed the contract with assurance from our legal advisor that there was minimal risk and it would not be an issue. I can’t and won’t go into details, but he was wrong. It is a problem.”
The full message is available here, as an archived Medium article.
The company was hosted by TokenLot, who has no knowledge of the whereabouts of the coins. The ICO apparently was a scam, and while tokens were issued, no actual work ever took place on the platform. Rather, due to legal issues, the company simply disappeared and all trace of its founders has vanished.
As a result of the disappearance, the price of the Confido token has lost over 90 percent of its value.
ICOs are still widely considered a very risky business, as governments are seeking direction on regulation. This leaves the consumer at risk.
source https://cointelegraph.com/news/confido-ico-raises-340k-vanishes