Suspected crypto con artists are once again using the likeness of British financial expert Martin Lewis to defraud unsuspecting victims. In 2019, Lewis settled a defamation suit against Facebook for similar Bitcoin (BTC) scam adverts. Instagram says deceptive advertisements have no place on its platform and plans to continue improving its detection protocols for such content. Social platforms have been known to censor crypto-related content, instituting blanket bans on crypto ads on several occasions. However, Facebook has recently relaxed this policy amid the roll-out of its own digital currency project. The social media giant is one of the main backers …

The Foin project — which is behind the eponymous token that sunk following its supposed unlocking period at the beginning of January — has released an official explanation of the token’s tanking after the purported price pump. Cointelegraph reported in an investigation on Dec. 30, 2019 that we had found a trail of suspicious movements in Foin’s (FOIN) price history, as well as a web of suspect business relationships associated with the coin’s development. As revealed by our investigation, there are multiple entities associated with Foin, like the Swiss-registered Foin Foundation, crypto payments firm and wallet provider FoPay, and AliExchange. …

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission have argued in a Jan. 10 filing that Blockvest founder Reginald Buddy Ringgold III falsified and, in one case, forged signatures in documents critical to the case. The commission had previously charged Blockvest with falsely declaring that its initial coin offering (ICO) was registered with the regulator. A pre-ICO? In Oct. 2018, the SEC halted Blockvest’s ICO in an emergency court order. The project had nevertheless already collected more than $2.5 million in a pre-ICO sale of its BLV token. Though the Southern California court district initially claimed that the commission failed to …

An Ethereum Classic (ETC) development organization is warning the public against a possible scam that is attempting to exploit users the day after the altcoin completed its hard fork. In a tweet posted by the ETC Cooperative on Jan. 13, they ousted an alleged scam calling itself “EAgharta” in resonance with ETC’s bona fide “Agharta” hard fork: “Needless to say, ‘EAgharta’ is a complete scam, probably from the same people who did something very similar at Atlantis. Stay away. ETC Agharta did not result in new ‘Agharta coins.’ They are just trying to scam you.” Fraudsters say “make Ethereum Classic …

Disappointment isn’t always a bad thing. It can be a spur, motivating one to work harder to meet expectations and goals. It is in this spirit that Cointelegraph informally surveyed members of the crypto community about this past year’s unfulfilled industry promises. Here are some of 2019’s biggest disappointments: Adoption missing? Where are the giant blockchain or crypto projects — enterprises that seize the imagination, rivet the public’s attention, and quiet the crypto skeptics? As Nouriel Roubini noted last year, “[Blockchain] still has only one application: cryptocurrencies.” Many in the industry are still waiting. As Lanre Sarumi, CEO of crypto …

In its most basic sense, a deepfake is a combination of face- and voice-cloning AI technologies that allow for the creation of life-like, computer-generated videos of a real person. In order to develop a high-quality deepfake of an individual, developers need to accumulate tens of hours of video footage associated with the person whose face/voice is to be cloned, as well as a human imitator who has learned the facial mannerisms and voice of the target. There are two humans involved in the creation of a deepfake, such that the target face/voice is that of the famous person while the …

A Chinese cryptocurrency fitness app has reportedly been placed under investigation for allegedly illegal fundraising practices and financial fraud. Nikkei Asian Review reported the news on Dec. 18, citing documents ostensibly accessed by its affiliate publication, KrASIA. Investors in limbo According to the report, the market regulator in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, is investigating a fitness app that promised to reward users with cryptocurrency “candies” in exchange for being active. By clocking 4,000 steps a day for 45 days, users of the app, dubbed “Qubu,” could purportedly earn 15 candies, which could then be traded in for cash …

Canadian law firm Miller Thomson has made a request to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to conduct an exhumation and post-mortem autopsy on the body of Gerald Cotten, the deceased owner of the now-defunct Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX. On Dec. 13, the Miller Thomson lawyers explained in a letter to the RCMP that the request to exhume and examine Cotten’s body was appropriate given the “questionable circumstances surrounding Mr. Cotten’s death and the significant losses” sustained by users of the cryptocurrency exchange. Victims need clarity on whether Gerald Cotten is in fact deceased The law firm further points to …

United States authorities have charged a Pennsylvania man with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and extortion via a series of SIM swaps targeting cryptocurrency execs and investors. SIM-swapping — alternatively known as a port-out scam — involves the theft of a cell phone number in order to hijack online financial and social media accounts, enabled by the fact that many firms use automated messages or phone calls to handle customer authentication. As per a Dec. 11 news release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Anthony Francis Faulk, 23, allegedly used “fraud, deception, and social engineering techniques” to persuade telecoms employees …

United States authorities in New Jersey have announced the arrest of three men who are accused of defrauding investors of over $722 million as part of alleged crypto ponzie scheme BitClub Network, per a Dec. 10 announcement from the Department of Justice. The accusations against BitClub Network According to the press release, BitClub Network promised massive rates of return in exchange for investments in a shared cryptocurrency mining pool. The parties at the center of the scheme then allegedly misappropriated over $722 million of those funds into their own lavish living rather than the promised mining pool. Authorities further accuse …

In the last week of November, the saga of an alleged crypto Ponzi scheme that has been lingering for more than half a year took a new turn. A hobbyist blockchain researcher reported on Twitter that he’d tracked almost 200,000 BTC that had gone missing over the summer, when several million people invested in PlusToken — a South Korea-based exchange and a high-yield investment program — found themselves unable to withdraw their money. The researcher suggested that the embezzled funds have been gradually dumped on crypto exchanges, potentially suppressing Bitcoin market price. Here’s what is known about the monumental scheme …

The website for cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme OneCoin has finally ceased operating, months after United States authorities indicted one of its founders for fraud. As MLM scam monitoring resource BehindMLM.com noted on Dec. 1, OneCoin.eu no longer returned a live result as of Nov. 30. “Legal investigation” offlines OneCoin.eu Upon investigation, a representative from EurID, the domain’s registry, confirmed to the publication that the website was offline due to the criminal proceedings against OneCoin. “The domain name is under legal investigation. Please further check our WHOIS for the status of the domain name,” a written response reads. The event marks the …