Now Mining launched late last year and billed itself as the “official marketing arm of Genesis Mining”.

Despite the claim, Now Mining went on to collapse shortly after launch.

Headed up by Luis Ortega, recently Now Mining has been relaunched as VIP Mining.

There’s no mention of a Genesis Mining partnership in the latest incarnation, however that didn’t stop the company from reaching out to me to confirm no partnership with Ortega or VIP mining.

With respect to Now Mining’s initial claims, Shah Hafizi, Chief Compliance Officer at Genesis Mining writes;

I write to inform you that Luis Ortega’s claim that he has had a partnership with Genesis Mining is false and misleading to the public.

We have never had a partnership or even communications with Mr. Ortega.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ortega is one of many who have made false claims of mining capacity by unlawfully using the Genesis Mining trademark.

This naturally raises two questions;

Firstly why Ortega lied about the Genesis Mining partnership and secondly, if Now Mining wasn’t cloud mining – where did affiliate ROI payments come from?

For their part, Hafizi claims Genesis Mining has ‘notified several regulatory authorities of Mr. Ortega’s fraudulent scheme‘.

In our published December 2017 Now Mining review, we concluded Now Mining was likely using newly invested funds to pay affiliates a daily ROI.

Genesis Mining denying any partnership with the company or Ortega only strengthens that viewpoint.

Furthermore it casts doubt on VIP Mining being anything more than a Ponzi reboot. Which we kind of figured anyway, but is a conclusion now strengthened by the likelihood of no cloud mining going on.