BitConnect Reddit goes private, YouTube shill updates
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.
yup, returning investments at the rate of 363.62$ per BCC:
BCC current price on coinmarketcap is currently at around 25$ and heading to zero, so people have lost most of their money.
Trevon James deleted his stream upload within 20 minutes of this article going live.
In all honesty, what is the point of selling off your BCC right now?
You lost 90-95%, might as well hold on to it as “who knows what could happen” is definitely better than 5% return.
Maybe it is the next dodgecoin or dash (a joke and a scam coin respectively) and both traded and making people money daily.
I take that bet any day. Eat that last 5% if you are wrong, but sure better bet than guaranteed 95% loss.
BitConnect affiliates are stuck in a lose-lose situation.
If they sell they’re going to take a massive loss. If they hold the value of BCC will wind up at $0.
You can’t pump after a Ponzi scheme has collapsed, so BCC has no speculative value. And it doesn’t have any real-world application to generate value through either.
BCC was always just a vehicle for Ponzi fraud. Now that’s over the points are worthless.
yeah. best of luck with your hodling.
BCC now below 20$.
Im sure if people find out where the youtubers live, they’ll be in actual danger.
Cryptonick now has 170000 people who want to physically cause him harm. I’m also sure that the authorities will do a claw back. Really, his parents should take away his internet privileges…
Pretty poorly written article, m’boy. It’s great that you want to break the story, but handing it off to a set of fresh eyes to QC it is always worth the ten or fifteen extra minutes it’d take.
Anyway, I’m glad to see BCC go and I’m really enjoying watching all the people who threw their money away cry giant tears and ask “How could this have happened to me?” now that things have fallen to pieces.
Although, I think they’re pretty shitty for trying to bring big daddy government in on this. They knew the risks, they shouldn’t be pitching a fit because they ended up getting the short end of the stick.
Also, any of you goobers who say you should just hold BCC are just as stupid as the people who’ve fallen for the ponzi. Zero smart money is going to enter the BCC ecosystem. It’s failed.
The only reason people are buying it is misplaced confidence in their own speculative abilities.
The investment fool is one who always tries to buy the dip, even if they don’t fully understand why the dip happened.
Actually BCC was as low as $5 for a moment and bounced back to $19. Apparently some early investor managed to find a buyer and sold for $19.
More notable in CoinMarketcap:
Volume (24h)
$23 492 800 USD
The crash was a result of some pretty heavy selling.
Stock market has the “Greater Fool Theory”. It certainly applies here.
@Myron
What did I miss?
Article updated recording reopening of BitConnect Reddit.