🧠 FBI are on a crypto man hunt

September 12, 2022

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  • 🦹‍♀️ FBI Top 10 Most Wanted: "CryptoQueen"

  • 👀 Bitcoin Pump Incoming

  • 🌱 NewSeeds

OneCoin's rise 📈

It started in 2014: "OneCoin" was one of the hottest cryptocurrencies. It had the second largest crypto market cap in the world. 

They convinced millions of high level investors that OneCoin would be even better than Bitcoin, it would change the world of finance, it was secure, fast, easy, and other juicy buzz words. But it was all just marketing. 

It ended up being the biggest scam in crypto history to date.

It worked like this:

  • OneCoin took advantage of people's greed, and lack of technical knowledge

  • Convinced investors to get in early before OneCoin takes over crypto

  • Sold very expensive "educational material" to investors, teaching how to mine OneCoin

  • Offered buyers commission to sell the currency to more people.

  • But, OneCoin was never made available for public trading, so no one could cash out.

Wait. That's a ponzi.

The Puppet Master. 📖

 Ruja Ignatova, the "CryptoQueen," a well off Bulgarian woman, was the puppet master behind it all and has taken a total of $4B from the victims. 

CryptoQueen had all kinds of victims, and a lot of them had the same story: 

  • They would hear about the life changing opportunity of OneCoin from a friend

  • Go to an event, and be wowed by the fancy shmancy pants speaking

  • CryptoQueen was strikingly persuasive. A "visionary." She showed off fake degrees and Forbes features.

  • Investors went ape and FOMO'd in.

  • They put ungodly amounts of money into OneCoin, thinking they'll be the next Bitcoin billionaires.

We've heard similar stories throughout crypto and NFTs. Luckily, since 2014, investors have gotten significantly smarter. 

Were OneCoin investors the OG degens? Did they ape in because of FOMO? 

DEGENS OR VICTIMS?

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Author Jamie Bartlett calculates that only about 1- to 5% of the top tier of the OneCoin scheme made any money. And the rest of the 95% lost billions of dollars.

Pablo? 

After being a no show to an event in Lisbon, CryptoQueen was last seen boarding a flight from Bulgaria to Greece in 2017.

The feds have issued a $100,000 reward to anyone with leading information to her arrest.

And they still haven't found her.

Whatever the future holds for Ruja, you've got to admit, she's the Pablo Escobar of crypto.  

Stealing billions of dollars is one thing, but getting away with it is a whole other story.

Her accomplishments 👍:

  • The first woman on the FBI's top 10 most wanted.

  • Left with at least $500M to her name.

  • Still not found.

This is a monumental part of crypto history and is a huge lesson on WHY you need to DYOR when investing. 

These are tips to avoid a Ponzi scheme 🏃‍♂️.

  • Read the whitepaper 📝 - this will tell a lot about a project and how serious they are. If they are executing deadlines and upholding community communications is a good sign.

  • Vet their socials 📱 - Are the people running the project doxxed? Do they have any prior history working in the space? People with ill intentions tend to be less transparent.

  • Is there an actual product ⌚️? Why are people even buying this? If there's no product to push forward, the founders are probably too focused on pumping their bags. 

Last week, we went more in-depth on the difference between ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes. It also showed you how to avoid the five ways hackers take your money.

Microstrategy holds around 129,000BTC (almost $3 billy) which makes them the Moby Dick of Bitcoin whales. 

They've agreed with investment bank Cowen and Co. to sell up to $500M shares of its common stock and plan to use the funds to buy more Bitcoin.

BTC's price is floating around the $18k-$23k area, indicating that $20k is a strong support line.

This could mean two things : ✌️

  1. If they purchase BTC immediately, they expect this to be the bottom, and they're getting in before the price runs.

  2. They don't buy, which could indicate more decline and are saving liquidity to pull the trigger once it falls even more.

Whale watching might not be important to the average joe, but to break through from beginner to experienced, you need to understand why things are moving.

It will affect the market if someone buys half a billion worth of BTC. 

Here are three reasons why whale watching is important :👇

  • They have the ability to manipulate the markets and will do so to pump their bags.  

  • Tracking their wallet and motives is an excellent way to prevent getting trapped in their sell-offs. 

  • Having a plan on where to enter and take profit helps you prevent this. 

How to track whales: 🔭. 

  1. Exchange to Wallet — Transferring between cold wallets and an exchange. Generally, outflows from exchanges mean higher prices and vice versa.

  2. Wallet to Exchange — Fast investments between a hot wallet and an exchange. Depositing stablecoins generally indicates buying pressure, while depositing assets means selling pressure.

  3. Wallet to Wallet — This generally indicates an OTC trade for privacy and liquidity. These transactions generally do not affect the market much and sometimes trigger market reactions.

CoinCarp Richlist: A free tool to search for the largest holders of Bitcoin. 

NFTgo: A fantastic tool that gives you analytics for NFT projects, including whale tracking, rarities and more. 

🌱 NewSeeds

NFT mints on Solana have surged to an all-time high. We called y00ts weeks ago. I'm just saying. 😤

Meme for the Queen : 

RIP.

If you learned something share with a friend, professor or your neighbor. 

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research

See you tommorow!

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