Earlier in the week, Savedroid’s Initial Coin Offering (ICO) appeared to be engaging in an exit scam. The project’s creators uploaded an image that read “AANNND IT’S GONE,” to their website after purportedly raising $50 million USD (over $63 million CAD). Now, however, the website returned with a video titled “And it’s NOT gone,” where the team explained that the “exit scam” was a way to warn the community about the prevalence of ICO scams.
Alongside the image which seemed to indicate that the German-startup tookthe money and fled, the project’s founder, Yassin Hankir, made a similar post on Twitter suggesting that he had made a getaway.
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Now that the project has returned, Hankir’s YouTube video explains that the team was intending to demonstrate the danger of unregulated ICOs. Hankir stated that the move was not a “prank,” but rather a “drastic message” intended to ignite conversations about ICO fraud.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5_bwFf_byo“We wanted to send this very drastic message by saying that look, how easy could have been that even we as a highly-regulated German stock corporation could just have run away, done an exit scam with all the funds, leaving all the investors behind,” he said. “Of course we have not done that, we just wanted to convey that message.”https://twitter.com/YassinHankir/status/986551967932735488https://twitter.com/KyleSGibson/status/986961553160376320However, Savedroid’s stunt has not been received favourably. Currently, the team’s official YouTube video explaining the situation has far more dislikes than likes, and hundreds of comments criticizing the team. https://twitter.com/cryptokuraokami/status/986948214669692929
Savedroid stated that it intends to launch an “ICO advisory” service, which it claims will help clean up the at-times chaotic ICO landscape. Regardless of the stunt’s polarizing reception, ICO fraud is currently a topic on the minds of many.https://twitter.com/hrhgeordiep/status/986990038570471424Due to the increased popularity of the digital currency industry, there is an abundance of bad actors operating in the space. These fradulent actors often create false ICOs intending to steal money from investors through “exit scams.” While it appears that Savedroid’s actions were more of a publicity stunt stunt than an actual scam, it’s important that investors take measures to protect themselves online. Coinsquare News recently published an educational outline listing four ways to spot cryptocurrency scams and fraudulent ICOs.Image credit: Savedroid logo
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