Turcoin, hailed once as Turkey’s new alternative digital token and potential national cryptocurrency has been denounced as a Ponzi scheme, writes Bitcoin Exchange Guide.
It appears that the founders have disappeared, apparently accused of fleeing Turkey, absconding with more than 100 million Turkish liras (about USD 20 million) collected from over 10,000 people in in the country.
The company had gained plenty of publicity since its startup including laying on massive parties for celebrity guests and awarding luxury vehicles to early adopters of Turcoin, late in 2017. Since then, it’s been reported that the cars were borrowed rather than owned by the company.
The Ponzi scheme ran for nine months before it was uncovered, duping customers with promises that it was to become Turkey’s national cryptocurrency, despite lacking any acknowledgement of that from government officials at any time.
The company originated out of Hipper, an Istanbul-based company founded by Muhammed Satıroğlu and Sadun Kaya, who are now both finger pointing at each other, neither claiming to be the perpetrator of any wrongdoing.
Satıroğlu, who owns 49% of Hipper, has claimed that he was simply a mediator and that the company holds no funds in its accounts. Kaya, with his 51% holding, has vanished, although the company is promising to return funds once its accounts are frozen; difficult considering Satıroğlu is claiming the company has no extra funds banked and that the funds are in Kaya’s account in Cyprus.
Cryptocurrency users should be aware of Ponzi schemes, many of which insist that customers lock up their funds for what would be regarded as an unreasonable amount of time. Bitconnect, which was recently outed as a Ponzi scheme last year by investors, including Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, is a case in point. Ponzi schemes often leverage the popularity of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to promise impossibly high and regular returns. The Bitconnect example promised 40% return on investment each month, providing investors locked up their capital on its platform, writes BTC manager.
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