In what appears to be an attempt to cover their tracks, admins of the popular BitConnect Reddit have set the discussion forum to private.

Prior to the decision, discussion on the BitConnect Reddit raised the prospect of admins being held legally accountable for promotion of a Ponzi scheme.

As above, most of the content in the Reddit was in relation to BitConnect’s collapse. A mixture of disbelief, BitConnect investors sharing how much they’ve lost and those who didn’t invest reveling in their misfortune.

Elsewhere on the internet other BitConnect ringleaders are also attempting to downplay their role in the promotion of the scam.

On YouTube BitConnect’s top promoters are CryptoNick, Craig Grant and Trevon James.

Following BitConnect’s collapse CryptoNick uploaded a short video, most of which is just him reading out BitConnect’s collapse notice verbatim.

After using the claim he’s a “17 year old bitcoin millionaire” to heavily promote BitConnect to his 176,000 subscriber-base, CryptoNick failed to take any responsibility for his role in the scheme.

It’s official guys, BitConnect is closing down. This platform has been amazing.

I’ve always wondered if or how this website was eventually going to come to an end.

It’s been great, y’know 1% every single day on average.

CryptoNick goes on to dispute BitConnect’s anonymous admins are “exit-scamming”, by claiming they are returning everyone’s investment back in BCC points.

Trouble is BCC is and always has been worthless.

And that couldn’t be more painfully obvious for BitConnect affiliates now that the Ponzi side of the business has collapsed.

BitConnect’s admins and top promoters like CryptoNick have been making bitcoin off of gullible investors for months.

Dumping a bunch of pre-generated BCC points onto the affiliate-based as a representation of returning money is a con.

I honestly can’t believe this happened guys.

Um, like I said, it’s been a great platform and it’s officially coming to an end.

It’s official, it’s coming to an end but we are going to get our money back.

So that’s really all I have for you guys today.

Tellingly, CryptoNick disabled comments for his BitConnect collapse video.

Trevon James fired up a livestream when he learnt BitConnect had collapsed.

Simply titled “you win”, throughout the stream James cops a wave of abuse and criticism over his YouTube promotion of BitConnect.

People want to blame me for, y’know, I guess their loss … you didn’t get a loss, you got your money back.

At least they (BitConnect’s owners) didn’t just disappear like every other platform.

You got your money back. you just didn’t get it in the coin you wanted.

And everyone’s panicking and selling and making the price go down. Tough luck.

James spends much of the stream reading comments and responding to them. At one point James even dares viewers (who have presumably lost money in BitConnect) to sue him.

You’re gunna sue me? Fuckin’ sue me man.

Sue me for what? What are you going to sue me for? What could you possibly sue me for?

I want somebody to tell me what you can sue me for.

Up until shortly after the Texas cease and desist, James was heavily promoting BitConnect with near daily video uploads.

If you’re blaming me, that’s a pussy way out man.

Don’t blame me for your moves man. Don’t say I convinced you to do anything. Don’t try it man.

You’re fucked?

I’m not fucked in any way shape or form. This is YouTube. I don’t own BitConnect. I didn’t do anything.

If I’m fucked, so are you guys.

After recommending BitConnect affiliates circumvent the Texas cease and desist, James has since deleted most of his BitConnect videos.

I’m not owning up to anything. There’s nothing really to own up to.

I’m just facing the music. There’s nothing that I did.

I didn’t do anything wrong, y’know?

In the livestream James contemplates spending “about 2 BTC” on BCC points, despite BitConnect’s collapse.

Yeah, you gotta be a savage to buy BCC right now.

Like CryptoNick, James also disabled comments from the general public on his video.

Craig Grant responded to the collapse by claiming the BitConnect community was showing him love.

In a video titled “Bitconnect community love”, Grant declared he was “confident about BitConnect.

And everyone in BitConnect who’s invested and has a lot of experience, are [sic] comfortable, as far as I can see, just holding onto their tokens.

In direct contradiction to this, Grant then claims he’d already logged into BitConnect to sell off BCC.

Whether he’s just naive or trying to put the minds of those who invested under him I can’t say, but Grant does his best to put a positive spin on BitConnect’s admins flooding the cryptocurrency marketplace with worthless BCC points.

The online wallet with your tokens will be there for you to log in and move them, whenever you’re ready.

I say y’know, hold on.

The idea that I’m hearing is that these tokens… BitConnect just distributed seven million tokens to people all over the world – who are now holding these tokens.

It’s a decentralized token. Um, use cases?

It’s going to be up to them (BitConnect’s admins) to be creative to come up with use cases. new things to do.

I’m confident that they have, y’know the people. Or they have the team or they have the knowledge or whatever it is that they do – they’re capable … they’re fully capable of coming up with something  really creative to do for the BCC token.

Hold on. That’s what I’m doing. Hold on and see what comes out.

The reality is that BCC exists solely as a vehicle for BitConnect’s admins and top promoters like Grant to acquire bitcoin in exchange for worthless BCC points.

There is and never was any “use case” plans.

The only plan BitConnect’s admins every had was to steal as much money as they can and then try to get away with it.

Despite claiming that he thinks a cryptocurrency lending platform can “flourish”, Grant states he’s not getting involved in any more lending ICO schemes.

Grant’s video has comments enabled, and surprisingly a number of BitConnect investors are on-board with buying up more BCC points.

I been rolling with bitconnect for 7 months and the AI within bcc doesn’t make wrong moves.

Hodl your bcc think long term not short. Confidence is key.

CryptoNick, Trevon James and Craig Grant are all believed to be directly under to each be directly under Glenn Arcaro, the top US BitConnect investor.

Just over a week ago Arcaro abruptly stopped promoting BitConnect and did a runner.

Arcaro, who normally resides in California, is believed to have fled the US in favor of hiding overseas.

The bottom line for the BitConnect Reddit admins, CryptoNick, Trevon James, Craig Grant and Glenn Arcaro, is that promoting Ponzi schemes in the US is just as illegal as running them.

Stay tuned as we continue to document the fallout of BitConnect’s collapse.

 

Update 17th January 2018 – Within 20 minutes of this article being published, Trevon James deleted his “you win” YouTube stream upload.

 

Update 18th January 2018 – Looks like the BitConnect Reddit admins have done a runner.

They’ve supposedly entrusted the BitConnect Reddit to another user. That user has reopened the Reddit but intends to disable new comments.

I have contacted the Reddit admins and I have been given full rights to the subreddit.

I will not be moderating new posts. Therefor the subreddit will stay restricted. Please keep any comments you make civil. I have asked an admin to disable commenting.

Read back on this tragedy and use it for informational purposes.

Caveat Emptor.

Looks like there will at least be an archive of the Reddit, sans whatever incriminating evidence the former admins might have deleted before they ran.

 

Update 25th January 2018 – CryptoNick and Craig Grant have now also deleted their respective videos cited in this article.