It’s 2019. OneCoin is still alive, albeit on life support, but there are still new victims surrendering their hard earned money to these fraudsters every day, but why?

When the OneCoin scam started up in late 2014, early 2015, cryptocurrency was still very much in its infancy. It was easy back then to get confused and swayed by slick presentations that talked about banking the unbanked and global domination of a new type of digital money. But today, there really is little excuse. There are dozens of high quality books, podcasts, and YouTube videos that explain both crypto and blockchain in simple and easy to understand language and from trusted and renowned sources, so how anyone can still be caught up in these fake crypto scams beggars belief.

If you Google OneCoin, there are articles upon articles from high quality and reputable publishers tearing OneCoin apart and exposing the lies and fallacies that they peddle. Even the Wikipedia entry for OneCoin clearly shows that this fake program is a total scam.

So the question remains, how can this scam continue? The short answer is brute force. In all my years of exposing scams, I have never seen the cult belief so strong. The top “leaders” that haven’t left the sinking ship, have been gulping on the Ponzi/pyramid Kool-Aid for so long that it is all that runs in their veins. The more the facts come out to destroy the lies and myths that Ruja Ignatova has told, the more the cult leaders double and triple down on their belief. You are either with the company and don’t question anything, or you are a hater with an agenda – there is no middle ground.

The Missing Cryptoqueen

Recently, the BBC has released a podcast titled The Missing Cryptoqueen which is a fascinating journey through the OneCoin scam. It is featuring brave victims such as Jen McAdam who have woken up and are now warning others, Tim “Tayshun” Curry a long time crypto enthusiast who works tirelessly and thanklessly to wake up the victims from their Ponzi stupa, and blockchain professionals like Bjorne Bjerke who was approached to join OneCoin as a CTO to build a blockchain for the company, in spite of the fact that the company had already been selling coins and claiming to have a blockchain. Yet these people, as well as the journalist and his producer, have been attacked and their professional reputations undermined.

The cold hard facts

So let’s get some crypto facts down, and let any OneCoin leaders deal with it:

1)    OneCoin has no verifiable Blockchain.
2)    There is no such thing as a centralised blockchain. That is called a database.
3)    OneCoins do not exist outside of the OneCoin universe.
4)    They are not publicly exchangeable, either to fiat or other crypto.
5)    The Dealshaker platform is a joke. Tatty items are either sold at inflated prices as a combination of fiat currency and OneCoin, or are available for 100% OneCoin, but at prices that are stupendously high.
6)    The CEO is MIA with no explanation from anyone as to why.
7)    Her brother, who took over the running of the business, is currently languishing in a New York jail on wire fraud and money laundering charges and his sister has been charged with the same in absentia.
8)    Despite having hired the fearsome (loathsome?) Carter Ruck as their libel attack dogs, OneCoin have never taken anyone to court for libel.
9)    For something to have a real value, it must be market tested with real people buying it. OneCoin’s promise of a public listing has been “coming soon” for years now.

How long will this continue?

So now the question remains, how much longer can the diehard OneCoin victim-scammers persist with their illogical thinking that this by now obvious Ponzi/Pyramid scheme continue and their riches are within touching distance?

Well probably quite a bit longer, unless authorities around the world come out and decry this scam in clear and unequivocal language, and juries try the culprits responsible for spreading this fraud.

Yes, the people still believing the nonsense that OneCoin put out are not exactly Mensa members, but this not helped by the lack of warnings from the FCA, Action Fraud, Trading Standards, The Advertising Standards Association, and any other regulator or trade body that has a responsibility towards protecting the consumer. These bodies have absolutely failed in that. Complaints have piled up at at the City of London Police Economic Crime Unit, yet still OneCoin scammers continue unabated.

A couple of years ago, I had sympathy with the authorities for not understanding this space. In 2019, and with dozens of respected crypto and Blockchain experts in existence, there is little excuse for those bodies to not get clued up and take action.

Get in touch with Jon on Twitter @WalshJonWalsh

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