Digital Currencies: Now You Have It, Now You Do Not

February 2, 2018

We noted an interesting assertion in “Cryptocurrency ICOs: It’s Impossible to Police What You Can’t See.” The passage points attention to the ease with which initial coin offerings and tokens can be converted into “scams.” We noted:

ICOs have paved the way for so-called “exit scams,” in which fake companies launch an ICO and make off with investor proceeds. BitConnect is one of the latest companies which wound up its exchange operations, crashing the price of its BitConnect Coin (BCC) in the process. Investors were promised converted funds in BCC, but as their original investment had to be made in ETH, they have suffered countless losses as BCC’s value crashed and burned, leading many to believe the whole system was a scam — and one, unfortunately, which has cost its investors millions of dollars.

We loved this quote, attributed to Arianne King, managing partner and Solicitor Advocate of Al Bawardi Critchlow:

“It’s hard to police what you can’t even see.”

The Beyond Search DarkCyber research team would like to point out that modest strides have been made in deanonymizing some activities related to digital currencies.

The write up pointed out:

Investor cryptocurrency funds can be whisked away to multiple wallets and potentially “washed” through Dark Web services to become extremely difficult to track, and without cold, hard currency in a scammer’s bank account, little can be done.

Online is an interesting “environment,” fostering fake news, teen anxiety, and good old fashioned fraud.

Stephen E Arnold, February 2, 2018

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