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LoopX Startup Pulls ICO Exit Scam and Disappears with $4.5 Million (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by msmash on from the stranger-things dept.

Catalin Cimpanu, writing for BleepingComputer: A cryptocurrency startup named LoopX has pulled an exit scam after collecting around $4.5 million from users during an ICO (Initial Coin Offering) held in the recent weeks. The LoopX team disappeared out of the blue at the start of the week when it took down its website and deleted its Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube channels without any explanation. People who invested in the startup are now tracking funds move from account to account in a BitcoinTalk forum thread, and banding together in the hopes of filing a class action lawsuit.

9 of 122 comments (clear)

  1. Dumbasses by registrations_suck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    HA, HA!!

  2. Good by MrNJ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Stupidity should be painful

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    I don't respond to or upvote ACs
  3. Re:Why a Lawsuit? by sheramil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why would a class action lawsuit be preferable to reporting the crime to the police?

    Realistically, what can the police do if you tell them you gave a ton of money to some guy on the internet and he disappeared with it? The best you can hope for is that he'll say "I'll just type that up on my invisible typewriter" in an Edward G. Robinson voice.

  4. Predictable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Seriously, how utterly, bafflingly, astonishingly, utterly astronomically dumb are you people? Everything about cryptocurrency is a total scam. EVERYTHING. Anyone who has had even glancing experience with investing could have seen the warning signs from a million miles away. The best part for me is how it has primarily affected "techno-libertarians". In 100 years this will all be the primary example used when people talk about the dunning-kruger effect.

    Cue the replies claiming they made money so it must be "legit". For you folks I'll just ask again: WHY ARE YOU SOOOOOOOO STUPID?

  5. PT Barnum Was Right by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is a reason the SEC exists...not that companies haven't pulled equally dishonest things under their watchful eye.

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    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:PT Barnum Was Right by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Funniest part of this is someone posted on Reddit a month ago that they had been digging into this company and found a lot of red flags.

      A fool and his not-really-money are soon parted.

    2. Re:PT Barnum Was Right by rahvin112 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The coins might not be real money but the real money they handed over for coins certainly was.

    3. Re:PT Barnum Was Right by rahvin112 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The SEC was created precisely to combat the fake company offering that quickly went out of business and kept all the money scam. The laws put in place to stop this are extensive including a massive amount of paperwork that ties the real people behind everything to the offering so if it turns out to be a scam the SEC can go after them and put them in prison.

      Maybe at some point the SEC will have charge of crypto-currencies, but the funny thing is the same people getting ripped off will be against SEC regulation because it will add paperwork to the process.

      At some point you just have to accept that a fool and their money will soon be parted. You would think with all the offerings that turned out to be scams that people would be cautious but that doesn't appear to be the case.

  6. Re:ICOs by swb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Speculating seems too legitimate.

    This is like a self-aware group Ponzi scheme where everyone thinks they're early enough in the Ponzi to be one of the people who gets paid off.