With the BTC value now soaring high with up to $6,847 a coin in the ground breaking cryptocurrency field, there will always be scams that run rampant amongst the innocent investors and the fraudsters looting all the assets. From ranging to the Wright-Klieman lawsuit to the national government’s cyber security division fishing out the fraudsters, the Philippines SEC division is now on the trail of yet another fraud investment scheme numbered to be the third one in this month alone.
The Philippine’ SEC (where SEC stands for Securities and Exchange Commission) has now put up a warrant on it’s third cryptocurrency scam this month alone. It has now warned the investors about the fraud scheme infamously dubbed as “The Billion Coin” (TBC).
The Billion Coin
The Billion Coin is a decentralized cryptocurrency much like how the Bitcoin is but instead, works on its own formula and algorithm structure which depends upon the total members involved in the TBC community. The makers say that it “aims to revolutionize the global financial system in order to eradicate global poverty”. The TBC is controlled by third-party administrators. They target the poorer section of the Nigerian people, seal them off into work groups and warn the not to spread any news that’ll make the TBC look bad. Much like the fraud schemes in the shares market they’ve managed to make people believe that it’s a peer-to-peer network and have managed to fake coin ideas that look like and resemble to the blockchain technology but not the real deal hence trapping eager and fairly inexperienced investors. The scheme lures these investors to invest their funds in its assets and other offerings “in leiu of passive income”.
The Philippine trade community has fallen into their trap and by looking at the rate of the frauds being detected, quite deep into the scam. The BTC is marketed as a “abundance-based cryptocurrency” where, the concept of abundance is used to clarify the asset’s individuality from “market driven norms “and face values by claiming that, the more the number of the people involved in the community, the higher the coin’s share value goes.
The Philippine SEC also took note that the TBC has come up with “its own parameter in generating the value of its TBCoin” as stated earlier. Now this algorithm also seems to back their claim “that if the TBC gathers one billion investors, each individual crypto-coin will hold a share market value worth one billion euros, correspondingly”.
In addition to it’s distorted claims, the scam allegedly promises 100% returns on a period of 25 days on a certain number of fixed investment packages. Also, the TBC has come up with a clever security law that pretty much grounds the regulator’s intervention and threatens to freeze the bank accounts and assets upon doing so.
The SEC also highlights the fact that TBC itself can be deemed as a security under the statements of its guidelines on cryptocurrencies and ICOs (initial coin offerings), which conclude that:
“some virtual currencies, based on the facts and circumstances surrounding their issuance, follow the nature of a security as defined be Section 3.1 of the securities regulation code”
The SEC has also pointed out the facts that:
- neither the creator of the TBC nor the body are in fact, registered with the Commission.
- The TBC lacks certain crucial necessary licences.
- Are not registered with any of the country’s central bank.
It’s also noted that the TBC doesn’t make an appearance on the CoinMarketCap’s rankings and that since the asset is not registered/listed or notified on any known trading platforms, TBC appears to be a standalone and is managing it’s own laundered cryptocurrency, staying unregistered to any of the necessary protocols pointed out earlier. Also, it’s reported that the Bangko Sentralng Philipinas, the Philippine national banks require cryptocurrency exchanges to apply for a licence which has not been met as a requirement.
Investors are now being warned against this scheme stating that if found registered as a salesman, broker, dealer or an agent to the TBC (especially during this pandemic), they will possibly face a maximum penalty of 21 years in prison for teaming up with such unauthorised entities. Due to all of these, The Regulator had warned investors against the bogus scheme which has self-proclaimed itself as the “Bitcoin Revolution”.
