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German ICO Savedroid Pulls Exit Scam After Raising $50 Million (techcrunch.com)
German company Savedroid has pulled a classic exit scam after raising $50 million in ICO and direct funding. The site is currently displaying a South Park meme with the caption "Aannnd it's gone." The founder, Dr. Yassin Hankir, has posted a tweet thanking investors and saying "Over and out." TechCrunch reports: A reverse image search found Hankir's photo on this page for Founder Institute, and he has pitched his product at multiple events, including this one in German. Savedroid was originally supposed to use AI to manage user investments and promised a crypto-backed credit card, a claim that CCN notes is popular with scam ICOs. It ran for a number of months and was clearly well-managed as the group was able to open an office and appear at multiple events.
I predict that, at some point, vigilante justice is going to kick in. These twats just rip people off and make light of it, well, sooner or later someone's gonna snap.
"I lent a friend of mine $10,000 for plastic surgery and now I don't know what he looks like."
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
It was a Shitcoin.
Now 4 more Doge.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
It's almost like the entire idea of an "initial coin offering" is a complete scam, designed to cash in on cryptocurrency hype!
Also, some might be surprised to learn that water is wet.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The only thing that annoys me is I don't know how to join in and rip some people off myself. Seriously, how do people keep falling for these?
Crap. I invested a lot here. He was using deep learning and AI to manage investments. Since AI and deep learning are totally a thing (I read about it in Slashdot) I figured I couldn't lose.
Why does anyone fall for this anymore? There was some survey recently where more than 80% of ICOs were scams.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
... third grade con-man 30 seconds into the presentation. LOL. This whole "I built my own crypto currency" bullshit is totally off the hook - feels like 2000 all over again, doesn't it?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
the CEO of Savedroid for helping lower the price of graphics cards.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
With a flamboyant exit like this, it may have been actual fraud from the beginning.
Proving it will be hard, but if it can be proven, the guy behind it may be singing a new song: "My freedom: Aannnd it's gone."
Unfortunately for the prosecutors, actual fraud can easily be disguised as incompetence/wishful thinking, and incompetence - at least in non-regulated businesses - is rarely a criminal offense.
Are (any) fiat-currency and (any) cryptocurrency really equivalent, as cryptocurrency fans claim?
For example, US Dollar and Bitcoin are really equals?
Value/validity/authorization of US dollar is provided/guaranteed by US Government (and in-turn whole US Public)!
Also, not to mention, US Dollars in any US Bank is insured by US Government!
What authorization/guarantee/insurance is behind Bitcoin? Nothing!
Sorry but that is the end of discussion then!
Why do you think Satoshi Nakamoto is really hiding his identity, if Bitcoin is really such a great innovation?
He is just someone does not like media/fan attention?
Or, could it be really because Bitcoin (and all cryptocurrencies followed it) are actually Ponzi Schemes?
(So he knew very well that law enforcement would come after him sooner or later?!)
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really good innovation, why they attract so many criminals/criminal activity?
Could it really be because, all cryptocurrencies themselves are scams, and that is why they attract all kinds of criminals/criminal activity?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really currency, why no company/store can use Bitcoin as currency anymore?
Because the price of Bitcoin proved to be extremely unstable to use as a currency?
Would the result be different, if Bitcoin replaced by any other "cryptocurrency"?
Aren't all work the same way?
If so-called cryptocurrencies are really money; isn't people issuing their own money, illegal already, in all countries?
If so then, why they are still not banned in all countries?
Or, they are not actually virtual currency but virtual investment?
But, if they are actually investment, why we need/want them?
What would happen to world economy, if people invested in virtual investments, instead of real investments?
Or, all so-called cryptocurrencies are actually just a modified (made decentralized and paying variable interest) Ponzi Schemes?
(Price of cryptocurrencies would keep increasing in the long term (by their design), so it is equivalent of paying variable interest to all long term investors.)
As more and more people invest in cryptocurrencies, it will become harder and harder to ban their trading everywhere!
All cryptocurrencies need to be banned globally before it is too late!
If it was intended fraud from the start I would bet on him having an exit strategy and that by the time it was posted on his website he and the money were already long gone to a nice country with difficult extradition laws, 50 million is enough to quietly retire in luxury in a lot of very safe places. really comes down to how smart he is.
You can make more money with a flop than with a success.
Lool the downs syndrome kids are getting more and more desperate
50?
I'll do it in 5 million. Please send me some e-monies.
When someone promises you investing into something will make you a millionaire, what they're really trying to say is "Invest in me so I can be a millionaire." That's all there is to it. The fine print reads: "Go fuck yourself".
It ran for a number of months and was clearly well-managed as the group was able to open an office and appear at multiple events.
If this is the kind of due diligence people do before investing(*) in crypto-currency, I see why so many people get scammed. "Well, they have an office, this company is clearly well-managed, must be legit".
(*) And when I say "investing", I mean in the same way that someone feeding their paycheck into slot machines is "investing"
Wow, finally a potentially good use for Facebook and their photo tagging technology. Someone needs to upload and tag this guy in a photo and some where, somehow he will get tagged, bagged and hung out to dry. Once he is located, and the info gets out his days will be numbered, and I'd bet the number will be less than 50 million.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
It's my new bidcoin replacment, it will cause all other blockchain, synirgies enough said its like dock com 3.0 invest now! it replaces alta vista!
Not sure about what investors thought about that message, but, as a non-investor, that's pretty funny.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Check this out: https://cryptobriefing.com/find-yassin-hankir-exit-scam-savedroid/.
The real defect is on full display with your post--from its inception, to its whimpering demise.
I mean let us be honest, most if not all people which were taken have no resource to search for somebody like that world wide. And with 50 million, even washed down to 25 million, a team of 10 person can live a well financed live anywhere in the world without worry. The probability from a mafia guy being taken out of his money, is very low : mafia probably are the one organizing some of those scam to begin with. So i would say vigilant justice won't happen.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Some of those EVEN after the scam is revealed, responded to a user which told"hell am waiting it is on a legit exchange - and I was right", the answer was "yes but you risk missing a 667% markup" ==== this is the type of "easy money" thinking which taken people taken for their money. Stupid.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
But he sure pulled one over on all those fine Aryans, didn't he.
Your racist butthurt is delicious. May we have another helping?
5 million is no where near enough. Hell that is my target number at the moment to provide a modest retirement, certainly couldn't do luxury on that, at least not without having to be very selective on your location
"Investor" is just a euphemism for a stupidly rich person who lives off others producing something valuable, making him even more stupidly rich just by waiting and making no big mistakes.
"Crypto currency" is a scheme of some people who weren't stupidly rich before to become stupidly rich in the process, without anyone producing anything of real value at all.
"Investors" investing in "crypto currency" getting scammed do indeed get what they deserve and what sooner or later will happen to virtually all investments in crypto currencies. They should even be thankful if it went quick this time. Although there's not much hope the intelligence-greed-coefficient of those who invested in the discussed case might let them learn something from it.
A friend of mine is into ICO startups & sh!t. No scamming that I know of, legitimate businesses.
The basic idea is (1) that you're visible to investors, and (2) that you realise that there are people with more money than they can spend, and they need to piss away a *lot* because (...reasons? probably taxes or something.)
Meeting people in (2) is usually easy, they're all over the place at startup "accelerator parties" etc. The trick is to have them listen to you. So essentially the hardest part is (1).
It helps to know that investors are incredibly rich, but otherwise mediocre thinking people. They gamble a lot, but also don't actually, really do enjoy *pissing* money away. So they'll employ some heuristics when assessing risk and deciding whether to give you money. But to most of them it's all a game, so the heuristics will be fairly simple. In this order, this is what matters:
- Having a team that provably, flashingly cuts it.
- Building a validated product for a validated market.
- Building an interesting, promising product.
So essentially the surest thing is to have a team and a name already associated with bullsh*t-bingo startups. It helps lot if it's the same BS as the scam you're preparing. Previous startups don't even have to be particularly successful, just flash enough to be popular. If you have a really good team,
you stand a decent chance of getting money just for the asking. (I'm pretty sure the Theranos chick will get whatever money she wants for future ventures, whatever those are.)
If you additionally have a product that already sells good (e.g. by a competitor), that's gold. Doesn't matter that somebody else is doing it already, this only means that the market is well validated.
Worst thing you can have and still have a chance of success is a new, innovative product, with a presumably excellent, but otherwise unknown team. Pretty risky. You'll probably get you 25-50k to prove yourself, make a name, then you can try again with a different idea in 1-2 years to get the good grease.
This is what it takes for serious people with serious money to listen to you carefully. From there it's on you. It obviously helps a lot of you're good with people, charismatic, can "pitch" well etc. But chances are pretty good (I'd say 10-20%) that you get what you're looking for once you've come this far. So try this 4-5 times and you're set.
Takes some effort and probably 4-5 years of hard work. And a certain kind of self-marketing mindset, which I don't have.
More honest at least than all those others who keep up the scam by pretending that cryptocurrencies and blockchains had a real value. (There may be some applications of the "blockchain" concept which aren't completely stupid, but even then the most interesting question is whether conventional, proven technologies wouldn't serve the purpose just as well.)
You might want to actually click the link to their page first.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Brilliant marketing stunt for their ICO advisory project. Make it seem like they've done an exit scam, then release a promo video once they've gotten all the buzz. Simply brilliant!
once you are on the run your money rapidly decreases in value as you have to use other organisations that are willing to hide or process it for you so you can have it as relatively clean spendable funds that won't get you arrested at the first bank you walk into. That is expensive, VERY expensive, expect to lose half your ill gotten gains in this process if not more. Then you have to keep you and your money easily mobile, you are now down to well under 2 million, yes you can retire frugally on that, assuming you aren't forced to flee again in which case you have to go through that whole process again. personally if I was going to go for a big score that would make me such a huge target to be chased down I would never settle for as little as 5 million.
Looks like there's an update on the website: https://ico.savedroid.com/
Need to somehow find a way to fit "3D Printing" into this and we win the buzzword bingo (and a sudden inrush of VC investements)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
5 million goes a long way in Central America. I guess it depends how you define luxury.
The site has been updated with a message about the danger of ICO scams, the need for reform, and apologies for the scam simulation.
So the CEO made a video explaining that this was just a stunt to increase ICO scam awareness, and they are offering ICO advisory now (http://anditsg.one/)... seriously you couldn't make this s**t up!
It's back, with the boss giving a big speech on how it was meant as a warning to investors to watch for scams, and since his isn't then you should invest in his scheme.
How do you explain the frenzy about FEMA camps when a black man was in power and the frenzy FOR FEMA camps now they're to hold black men? And how they don't preclude anything but complaints.
Looks like it was just a really bad PR stunt, more info:
https://cryptoticker.io/savedroid-back-online-exit-scam-to-send-a-message/
Invest in my ICO where you can invest in a mutually funded community pool to secure ICO insurance in to cover all your other ICO investments that you are afraid will go away, too.
Not a scam. Promise(*)
(*) limited term offer, null where void, not applicable in your jurisdiction
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The icon on slashdot articles makes no sense, this is nothing to do with Bitcoin.
Such things need some new icon... it's not even crypto-currency, ICO are ICO. At best a virtual share, but usually a scam (99% of the time probably).
He is one of these Arabs who want to turn Germany into Arabia.
I hope you will enjoy SHARIA as soon as your nice immgrants have imposed it. This is only a matter of time in Germany, Britain and France. Do the math.
The site is back online and he did explain actually that was an experiment showing how easy was to manipulate.
Their explanation is, that this was a PR-Stunt.
Make of it what you will.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Supposedly was a pr gag
I am shocked, shocked that fake "currencies" would attract anything less than totally honest characters.
(Your cryptocurrency winnings sir)
Thank you.
150 thousand a year (from a no risk investment of 5 million) is a modest retirement?
Wow! I sometimes wonder if I live on the same planet as some of the posters here. :-/
This looks to me more like a promotional stunt. Going to their site it looks like they are trying to use this to promote their token. The video there looked to me more like they were warning about the risks of many ICO's and the type of exit that many take.
I'm not promoting them in any way, I do think that a lot of these ico's are very scammy, and like any investment you need to do your own work to verify that it actually is a good investment.
So Dr. Yassin Hankir is hiding for his life right now I suppose
The joke is on anyone going after APK for wasting their time on that feckless coward. It's hard to be offended by a keyboard jockey that has his life in a shambles.
The PS2 game Ico was great. It even got remastered for the PS3.
Oh wait, you mean ICO = Initial Coin Offering.
Hey, fucktard /. editors, how about doing your fucking JOB and describing an acronym the first time it is used. Oh wait, that would involve actual work.
After 20+ years you STILL can't do this?
You had ONE job ... *facepalm*
Yes, I'm not new here -- and I'll keep kvitching about their incompetence.
Well managed for a couple of months? Yes that's the build-up phase of a Ponzi Scheme. While you're growing you pay out "profits" with new incoming money, until reality hits and than suddenly the company goes up in smoke.
Then there are the local natives who just can't stand foreigners on the lam, and will rat them out. For example, the pizza delivery guy calling the Mexican authorities on Mr. Affluenza and his mother.
If someone comes in that everyone knows is fleeing justice, it only is a matter of a few hours before it hits international places that said person is living there, perhaps days before the bounty hunters come after them.
Five million to be on the lam for the rest of my life, always watching my back? No thanks.
I have to admin I've been to busy to look very deeply into bitcoin and it's ilk, but I'm never seeing anything positive.
It fees like someone saying '1% of rabid bears are just misunderstood. Let's go hug that one.' and for some reason people keep trotting toward that bear...
Just checked the "currently displaying" link, South Park image is gone, new image saying it's NOT gone, "check this space", etc.
Who knows? But you can bet your bottom dollar (if you have one left) that I won't be sending them any money :-)
I guess if his picture is floating around, soon he will be too - in a lake.
captcha: hacksaw
AND IT'S NOT GONE
https://ico.savedroid.com/
savedroid was here, is here, and will be here. Aaand savedroid is all in for establishing high quality ICO standards.
End of Line.
150 thousand a year (from a no risk investment of 5 million) is a modest retirement?
Wow! I sometimes wonder if I live on the same planet as some of the posters here. :-/
It's all relative. In 2038 150k/year is the equivalent of a 90k/year salary today (using 2.5% inflation. I used this site: here) Which for Podunk may be a good number, Minneapolis I would barely call that a modest income, if you are looking at New York City that's pretty much barely scraping by.
AND IT'S NOT GONE https://ico.savedroid.com/
Just a Mohammedan collecting his Jizya from the kuffar. Nothing to see see here, move on.
Crypto Currencies value is predicated on black market goods and services. e.g. Drugs, Prostitution, Ransomware and money laundering. People buy crypto currency to purchase illegal things. These things are highly desirable so the person buying is willing to take the risks. As for the seller, the product's cost is negligible but an artificially constricted supply means they can charge so much for it that the risk of getting stuck with worthless currency can be mitigated by charging 3, 5 or even 10 -20 times the raw cost of the product.
The black market created a floor of value for crypto currency. Once that grew large enough speculators moved in and drove up the value.
The real risk is that the government will clamp down on the illegal activity or (worse) make the activity legal (e.g. legalize drugs and prostitution, the latter two examples aren't likely to be legalized).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
if you are on the run you won't have 5 million, you have to have it laundered and in highly mobile non siezable investments. you won't be getting 150k a year from it.
Not gone, it was a publicity stunt.
I sometimes wonder about some of the morons here to, if you think you are getting 150k a year from 5 million that will need to be laundered while you are on the run you have no clue. You will be getting less than half that.
Not really, in central America you will need to spend a large chunk of that just in payoffs locally to keep people quiet about where you are as you will stick out like a sore thumb and their will be a long list of people looking to turn you in for a reward. The reality is you want to live somewhere that the money doesn't make you stand out and their isn't anywhere you can afford to do that on just 5 million in stolen funds.
See subject: "... in his ability & w/ THAT kind of ability? U SHOULD have that confidence" as amicusNYCL goes 'splat' https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8694351&cid=51429541/ due to YOUR OWN F'up, bigmouth (lol)!
* You're wrong now too you know - why?
You are lower as you're down in the dirt (& have been since vs. me @ every turn, lol) after what's in the link above PUT YOU THERE vs. me, which yes, makes you LOWER than me (by far).
APK
P.S.-> As always - You LOSE "amicusNYCL fake name FOR YOUR FAKE LIFE & arseholetechnica? Bah - I totalled them years ago, totally https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12013911&cid=56483367/ ... apk
More trash talk from a weak spam coward.
Proof that I utterly destroyed you. Of course we know how you never give up, even when you have been beaten.
ZIP
See subject & you live up to your name & named yourself well (zip = zero/nada/squat) lol https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12013911&cid=56486019/ as you've done nothing like that link shows that SHOT YOU DOWN IN FLAMES (you do that to yourself, it's all "your kind" is capable of in SELF-DESTRUCTION).
* You wish you were me instead of being a "ne'er-do-well" DO-NOTHING nobody "jealous jowie" that impersonates me, stalks me, abuses downmods on me, or just plain harasses me...
(Additionally - Based on your posting times, you ARE Zontar The Mindless - & I KNOW he has mental issues having admitted to being in treatment for "depression" (aw, poo' baby) + on drugs).
APK
P.S.=> Thanks for the circular reference in this post that shows you led me to where "your kind" is talking behind my back (vs. harassing me as usual)... apk
Ahh the delicious gasps of a dying flailing spam coward.
ZIP
P.S. => victory is sweet
See subject: You're the one gasping & dying the 1,000 deaths of a "ne'er-do-well" DO-NOTHING ZERO, lol https://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12013911&cid=56499549/ vs. me...
APK
P.S.=> You FAIL/LOSE - it's all you & "your kind" KNOW HOW TO DO... apk