Another prominent coin that followed a similar scheme was Bitconnect. Unlike OneCoin, Bitconnect was a popular coin on Coinmarketcap.com, and in the meantime even made it into the top 20 coins by market capitalization. Bitconnect operated a trading exchange and its own crypto currency. There were horrendous profit promises; once you lent the crypto currency over the platform, you got up to 120 percent profit a year. The minimum profit outlook was 40 percent interest plus 0.25 percent profit on the deposit per day. In addition it spread – who would have thought it – by recommendation marketing. Whoever brought new participants into the system could earn even more.
Right from the start, the Bitconnect system was suspected of being a Ponzi. The intervention of various financial supervisory authorities then brought confirmation. Bitconnect crashed at the beginning of 2018 and in September the last crypto exchange stopped trading the digital currency.
As so often it became dirty for the former operator – his wife was allegedly murdered and today the FBI is investigating him for his business.
Centauri – the community takes over Bitcoin secret
The Centauri (CTX) was a coin that was not publicly tradable at the time, and was particularly popular in German-speaking countries. It was originally the child of another potential snowball system. A Singapore based company called Global Dynamic claimed to make big profits by trading. Anyone who invested at least 1,000 US dollars could participate. In May 2016, Global Dynamic changed not only the company name and headquarters but also the Bitcoin secret payment system tested by onlinebetrug: instead of direct transfer to the bank account, the members of the company, now operating under the name „Alpha-Centauri“, received a crypto currency, the Centauri. This was then transferred by means of an exchanger (with substantial fees) in euro to the own bank account. Stupidly only that the Exchanger was closed after short time and the members remained sitting on their not listed crypto currency.
Nevertheless a large network with over 1,000 acceptance places for the Coin developed. When its most prominent sponsor, Michael Sander, announced in 2017 that he would be devoting himself to other projects from then on, this looked like the deathblow for the digital currency and the members‘ investment. The best-known face behind the coin, on the other hand, should be happy today about the juicy profits made at that time.
The coin survives
What happened then, however, distinguishes the coin from other potential scams: The injured parties formed a group that gave the coin a new coat of paint as of February 2018. From the quite large community there were programmers who updated the blockchain – luckily the coin really had one – and brought it up to the current state of the litecoin. They designed a new desktop and a paper wallet and put the private keys into the hands of the owners. Since November, the Centauri Coin has also been tradable on a stock exchange. The active members founded an association called D.I.F. by organising themselves today and working to revive the once large network of points of acceptance. So far they have kept the promises of their roadmap – this is rare even among established digital currencies.
Does the power that always „wants evil and yet creates the good“ work here – freely according to Goethe?
Possibly. Because when a coin that was possibly planned from above as a scam becomes a real community project, this is quite remarkable. Of course, it remains to be seen in which direction the Centauri Coin will develop.