After the advent of cryptocurrency, there has been a significant rise in their investment and trade volume as well. People now try to get their hands on early on cryptocurrencies which they believe could be potential 'Bitcoin' in the near future. People have their sets of tools which they use to conduct Fundamental and Technical Analysis. Some people use them efficiently and some falls miserably. Some get into the influence of others, and some falls into the trap of ICO's. They have become common and also rapidly growing after the inception of cryptocurrencies.
For A Company, ICO's are the Best way to raise capital from the investors and general public.
For Investors, ICO's are the potential way of earning huge money and double/triple their investments within one or two months.
The thing with ICO's is that they are decentralized and the funds raised through them don't subject to any scrutiny by any centralized authority. The funds raised through them goes directly into the private ETH or BTC wallet of the company and only then company issue the tokens to their investors.
What's the Matter with ICO's?
ICO's as I said above is the perfect and the cheapest way to raise funds for any potential project without any hassle. If we see the positive side of ICO's, then it would be concluded that its an effective way to raise funds with no extra charge and no hassle.
But on the downside, ICO's are suffering from crucial criticism. Nowadays scam companies are making fortunes on the shoulders of people who don't know much about technology and who invests in those companies with a dream to make their investment double or triple. Some people even invest their life savings in these ICO's and the next thing they get to know is that they got cheated in the end. All their money got flushed into the gutter and they became kind of bankrupt.
There is an example of 'OneCoin' to prove this 'Scam' thing true. It was a scam as well as conspiracy by the company owners to raise millions of dollars fund and manipulate how crypto market works.
What was OneCoin?
OneCoin was another ponzi scheme based on the cryptocurrency model. OneCoin project offered educational material and courses in exchange of their cryptocurrency. It was like a pyramid scheme which was designed on the basis of marketing personnel recruitment. One had to make people join OneCoin project and in return they got commission in the form of OneCoin which they can only use to buy OneCoin online courses and material from their own website. But it was concluded that OneCoin tokens could be used to mine 'OneCoin' cryptocurrency.
This project was founded and designed by Dr. Ruja Ignatova, a former CEO of Bulgarian Private Investment firm CISF. She also held a degree from Oxford University which was also subjected to many accusations.
OneCoin is said to be mined at two servers in Bulgaria and one of those server was in Hongkong. OneCoins can only be exchanged in OneCoin's private exhchange xcoinx where only the members who have taken a higher package can exchange OneCoins.
But sometime after OneCoin inception, it was revealed that OneCoin was another Ponzi scheme and same type of ponzi schemes which has already run by it's founder previously at many occasions. In February 2017, the OneCoin website was shut down and many people got arrested who were actively working in its marketing.
In Navi Mumbai, India, 18 people got arrested with $2 Million working actively for the marketing of this Ponzi scheme. Also the founder took into the custody too. By the time they got arrested, OneCoin had already raised $350 Million through their ICO's and other money processing system.
Can You Believe, $350 Million for a Ponzi scheme?
Yes, it is true. People falls in the trap of ICO's very easily because they think of it as another potential 'Bitcoin'. Most of the people do not have enough knowledge to comprehend the white paper issued by the company before their ICO's. They just read one or two lines and then take suggestions from other people, on the basis of that, people take investing decisions.
OneCoin's whitepaper was barely genuine and poorly written. Anyone with sound knowledge about crypto can understand how genuine it is but people were blind to see the secrets it hid at the time of their ICO and they paid heavily for it. One's Coin so called 'Online Courses' were just some content plagiarized from numerous websites. They were not even real and original.
Although it's founder has been released from custody without having solid Proof of its bogus but still OneCoin got tagged as another Ponzi Scheme.
OneCoin was a conspiracy from the beginning to accumulate wealth from investors and use that wealth into money laundering. And this is only one example of ICO's bogus. There are numerous examples of fake ICO's.
Everyday many companies conduct their ICO's and who knows many of them are scam. So, In order to save yourselves, please conduct a good research on company's project and understand it like you're purchasing the whole company not just their tokens.
Thanks for reading .!!
