The 5 Biggest Cryptocurrency Scams That Have Had the Biggest Impact on the Financial World

One of the things that have tarnished the image of the very noble cryptocurrency project is the fact that there are many scams around it. Now, we cannot argue the fact that the arrival of the cryptocurrency has changed the way the entire world sees financial transactions and currency. While the boom that is associated with the Bitcoin has been a sort of revolution, it has also been disruptive.

But on another hand, there has been some not too pleasant side of the arrival of the cryptocurrencies. The world’s best brains have capitalized on the Bitcoin to develop some very innovative and important technologies. But some people, who do not know how to put their intelligence to good use, have devised means of exploiting others through it. While the ICOs like Ethereum and Ripples that followed after Bitcoin have been doing well, some were created to scam others. This is because of inadequate regulations and policing on the part of the currencies. Some of the biggest cryptocurrency scams are listed below.

OneCoin

This has the name that makes it look very legitimate. But before it could run for months, it was discovered to be one of the biggest cryptocurrency scams. In it, people lost millions of dollars. Thanks to the Indian police that investigated it and found out that it was not just a fraud, but a multi-level Ponzi scheme. It worked for some time in India before this was discovered. But in Europe, no one trusted it because it is neither a legitimate decentralized cryptocurrency nor was it licensed officially.

Modern Tech

This is one ICO scam that has double faces. This seems to be the cryptocurrency scam that took money from people’s pockets more than all the others. The Vietnamese Modern Tech systems promoted two ICOs known as iFan and Pincoin. At the end, they succeeded in defrauding up to 32,000 investors of more than $650 million. With the amount involved, it was discovered that it was a calculated attempt to defraud people. The fact that the firm ran away with the mentioned money and abandoned its office at the Ho Chi Minh City says it all about its initial intentions.

Bitconnect

While the above name is the biggest in terms of the amount of money lost, this is the most popular of them all. At first, the buyers of the ICO named Bitconnect Coin (BCC) were made to believe that they are investing in a cryptocurrency that will disrupt and revolutionize the entire market with the number of returns it will bring to them. But the entire thing was all lies and deceptions. The real nature came out when the currency came up with a loan program that has it as the legal tender. This was a well-designed Ponzi scheme, which was discovered and shut down by American financial regulators. Currently, the investors are slamming a lawsuit of $700,000 in lost funds against it.

PlexCoin

This cryptocurrency came with a lot of frenzies and was making waves immediately after it was launched. But just like the bubble it was, it did not take time before the real nature was revealed. When an unrealistic return on investment is promised, look well, it is a Ponzi scheme. That was what the PlexCoin started with. With the promise of 1,300% ROI, it revealed itself, and the government regulators called for its closure immediately. But this was not without garnering up to $15 million during its ICO. The founder was later jailed for this.

Centratech

The cryptocurrency angle has witnessed celebrity endorsements as part of it. This came into the spotlight with the endorsement by Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled. It promised a fiat like instant exchange with a system like the Visa and MasterCard. Because of this, investors threw in a total of up to $32 million into it. But the two owners, Sohrab Sharma and Robert Farkas were later nabbed for fraud.