Considering that millions of investors around the globe have embraced the cryptocurrency trend, it is not surprising that this field has already experienced quite a few scandalous situations. When it comes to big money, people often encounter scams, fake claims, and huge financial losses. Crypto coins are no exception to this rule, and the incidents you will learn about in today’s article certainly confirm this.
Bitconnect’s cautionary tale
Bitconnect was a digital currency introduced in the fourth quarter of 2016. This coin was promoted along with a suspicious investment program that guaranteed high returns. Why was it suspicious? Because Bitconnect relied on affiliate marketing which had a multilayered structure. In other words, marketers became part of a banal financial “pyramid”. And although affiliates generated the bulk of the profits, Bitconnect attributed this success to the coin investments.
When Bitconnect’s crypto exchange closed in early 2018, people realized that this cryptocurrency was not worth investing in. As a result, the coin’s value plummeted from $500 to $0.40, and numerous crypto enthusiasts lost a lot of money.
The most costly Bitcoin mistake ever
When the crypto industry started to take off in 2009, James Howells decided to mine some Bitcoins on his laptop. In 2013, he sold this computer on eBay but did not forget to pull out the drive used for the mining. By that moment, James had already managed to generate about 7 500 crypto coins. And even after the catastrophic fall of the digital currency market in 2022, this BTC fortune would be worth about $170 million. However, Howells was not destined to receive this money because for some unknown reason he threw away the hard drive in 2013. The miner wanted to conduct a search operation at the city dump to find the drive but the local authorities did not give him permission.
Ruja Ignatova’s case
Ruja Ignatova is a scammer who took advantage of the growing crypto hype in 2016. Back then, she introduced the world to the new OneCoin cryptocurrency, which was supposed to be the next BTC. Given that the crypto market was starting to skyrocket at the time, people were excited to jump on this promising investment train. The problem was that Ruja and her team had not even managed to develop blockchain technology to operate their coin. But this did not stop them from accumulating about $4 billion of investments around the world and going on the run. In June 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation added Ignatova to its Ten Most Wanted List.
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