Bitcoin difficulty 2013
Bitcoins and other virtual currencies may be the way of the future, but they’re also opening new doors for scammers.
Pump-and-dump schemes are hardly new. But the one that emerged in December 2013 had a twist few fraud investigators would likely ever have imagined: it involved bitcoin, a virtual currency that exists only in the increasingly complex world of the Internet.
The scam was triggered by a message on Twitter, inviting people looking for “insane profits [to] come and join the pump.” The notice was “an invitation to a penny stock-style pump-and-dump scheme, ” The New York Times reported. It was operated by someone who called himself Fontas, who bragged that he conducted his scam with little fear of a regulatory crackdown.
“While such bid ‘em up, sell ‘em off scams are shut down in the financial markets all the time, ” the paper said, “this one and other frauds involving digital money have gone unchecked. The reason, in no small part: Government authorities do not agree on which laws apply to Bitcoin — or even on what Bitcoin is.”
During an online chat with the newspaper, Fontas said, “For now, the lack of regulations allows everything to happen.”
That same month, Chinese officials tried to dispel the idea that governments were incapable of responding to fraud involving bitcoins when they arrested three individuals accused of creating and then ransacking Global Bond Ltd., a Hong Kong-based bitcoin exchange. According to the Xinhua News Agency, by fall 2013, GBL had just shy of 5, 000 registered members, and a trading volume that made it the fourth biggest in China.
The suspects were apprehended a few weeks after the exchange, which had falsely claimed to be operating under a Hong Kong licence, ceased operating for no apparent reason.
