Does Ruja Ignatova know anything about cryptocurrency?
Upon learning of the arrest of Chinese investors, yesterday Ted Nuyten personally “reached out” to CEO Ruja Ignatova.
This was part of Nuyten’s duty as unofficial spokesperson for OneCoin to the MLM industry, suspected to be the result of an undisclosed amount of money changing hands.
In “a statement” published on Nuyten’s BusinessForHome blog yesterday, Ignatova referred to the arrest of Chinese OneCoin investors and seizure of over $30 million USD in assets as “a challenge”.
Cryptic as ever, Ignatova went on to claim OneCoin was ‘pushing hard and already working on several licenses to enhance the business in China.‘
That those licenses will never materialize is a given, in much the same manner as OneCoin left a return to the US lingering upon their abrupt departure last year. Ditto promises of opening up their own OneCoin banks.
In an attempt to not address the fact that OneCoin is under investigation by Chinese authorities, with OneCoin management holding events on the Chinese mainland likely to lead to more arrests, Ignatova claimed the cancelled Harbin event had been replaced by a May 9th event in Macau.
The request to place the event in Macau instead of Harbin was requested by the Chinese members themselves.
Fearing arrest and seizure of their assets, one can understand why Chinese investors didn’t want to attend a OneCoin event on the mainland.
For those unfamiliar with Macau, it’s a “Special Administrative Region” of China that functions as an autonomous territory.
China is responsible for military defense and foreign affairs while Macau maintains its own legal system, the public security force, monetary system, customs policy, and immigration policy. (Wikipedia)
That’s not to say Chinese mainland and Macanese authorities don’t work together. But with the Chinese investigation ongoing and little to no promotion of OneCoin in Macau itself, realistically the chance of Macanese authorities taking action on May 9th is slim to none.
A factor both Chinese OneCoin investors and management are acutely aware of.
In any event, whilst Ignatova’s response to the jailing of Chinese investors equates to legal dodging and weaving, what caught my eye was OneCoin’s bitcoin announcement.
In a press-release issued on the OneCoin website yesterday, the company announced it will be accepting ‘bitcoins from May 3rd, 2016’.
Following a substantial increase in the demand and interest, as well as Members’ requests, as of May 3rd, 2016, OneCoin will accept bitcoins as payment for its products.
This is further reflective of the difference between a legitimate cryptocurrency with market value, versus OneCoin’s worthless Ponzi points.
OneCoin will accept bitcoin because it has an actual value. OneCoin themselves won’t even accept OneCoin – not for their investment packages or even tickets to their events.
And that’s despite the pie-in-the-sky value investors are told their OneCoin’s are worth in their backoffice (an ever-increasing value arbitrarily assigned by the company itself).
What caught my eye in the press-release was this particular statement about the value of OneCoin:
The decision was made after careful monitoring of the market trends, which show that more and more people are seeking alternatives to bitcoin, since the currency has shown a rapid decline after crashing in value in 2015.
As its current prices continue to plummet, even the biggest supporters of the bitcoin currency admit it is unlikely to recover to its previous trading value. Disgruntled users are now searching for a substantially more stable solution.
What?
By no means am I a bitcoin expert. I don’t own any bitcoin (never have) and I don’t follow the going-ons of the bitcoin world.
My only exposure to the cryptocurency is when my research and ongoing tracking of MLM cryptocurrency opportunities and bitcoin intersect.
…but even I know the price of bitcoin isn’t plummeting.
Back in April 28th, 2015, bitcoin was valued at $225. Today, one year later, it’s trading at $449.86 (CoinDesk).
That’s a funny looking “rapid decline”.
Now what will or won’t happen in the future regarding the value of bitcoin I have no idea. And that’s not really relevant.
Today OneCoin are presenting themselves as a viable alternative to bitcoin, a cryptocurrency they acknowledge has tangible value by proposing to accept it, based on the purported “stable solution” OneCoin offers.
If we look at the track record of bitcoin’s value, “stable” is probably the least accurate adjective that comes to mind. And that’s not a negative. The value of bitcoin is truly shaped by supply and demand, in an open marketplace where goods and services can be exchanged by anyone.
Alternatively, the value of OneCoin is set by an employee in their office, based on the sole precondition that the new value cannot be less than the current value – irrespective of how supply and demand or any other organic determining factors (such as how much investor money OneCoin has squirreled away in their various shell companies).
The take-away from all of this?
In an effort to further the fiction that OneCoin exists within the legitimate world of cryptocurrency, their narrative has now gone so far off base they’ve literally invented an alternate reality.
That doesn’t exactly strike me as something anyone with even the remotest knowledge of the cryptocurrency sphere would think they could pass off. At least not to anyone outside a circle of investors who are in far too deep to confront their current predicament anytime soon.
But hey, what do I know. It’s not like you need to be a cryptocurrency expert to run a script to generate Ponzi points, assign them an imaginary value and convince millions of people around the world to invest.
Evidently all it takes is loads of makeup, some pretty dresses and a bit of paid advertising here and there.
Update 23rd January 2024 – Ted Nuyten quietly deleted all OneCoin coverage on BusinessForHome in January 2024.
This article originally contained links to cited BusinessForHome articles. Due to the deletion of the content, those links have now been disabled.
Nuyten hasn’t publicly addressed why OneCoin coverage on BusinessForHome was deleted.
even sergie mavrodi’s ponzi scheme MMM global [which recently collapsed] accepted bitcoins from its investors. it had a lot of investors from china who were making bitcoin payments. the chinese govt issued a warning against the MMM global scheme declaring it illegal. MMM global collapsed soon after.
now china is actively investigating and warning the public against investing in onecoin. it appears that onecoin has a large base of chinese investors.
if the heat continues, onecoin may have to shut down chinese investors accounts, much like MMM global had to do. this may cause the collapse of onecoin ponzi scheme. here’s hoping!!
onecoin investors are openly questioning the value of onecoin, on onecoins own official FB page:
well, so much for investor confidence!!
cointelegraph, the biggest media company in the cryptocurrency space, published an article in may 2015, exposing onecoin as a global ponzi scheme:
cointelegraph.com/news/one-coin-much-scam-onecoin-exposed-as-global-mlm-ponzi-scheme
further, in october,2015 cointelegraph released it list of ‘Top 5 Bitcoin-Related Scams for 2015’.
guess who’s at number one?
ONECOIN.
MMM global also finds a mention on this list of top 5 bitcoin related scams, as they accepted bitcoin from investors for payments.
with ruja now announcing that onecoin will begin accepting bitcoins, in exchange for its worthless ponzi points cryptocurrency onecoin, i hope the cryptocurrency world will get sufficiently riled up to publish more exposes about onecoin.
cointelegraph.com/news/fool-me-once-top-5-bitcoin-related-scams-for-2015
so, onecoin investors, hear it from a respected voice in the cryptocurrency industry, which is declaring onecoin to be a ponzi scam. stop running around blaming ‘bloggers’ and ‘haters’, and calmly assess all the information which is being presented to you.
Not in anyway setting myself as a spokesman, but the cryptoworld mainly ignores Onecoin completely as an irrelevant Old World type scam.
There is not much discussion about it because a quick look at Onecoin’s vital stats condemn it as pointless, and this is in an environment used to new coins and pump and dumps daily.
Why would Mrs. Vicat start accepting Bitcoin? Maybe simply because it may mean some extra untraceable income?
The cognitive dissonance involved doesn’t phase her or her greedy sheep, just like the patent absurdity of Xenu doesn’t prevent lost souls opening their wallets to Scientology.
There are a number of parallels between the two, including the “us against the world” mentality fostered by vilification of ‘others’ as unenlightened haters.
If Miss Piggy has got any qualifications, they’re probably in Psychology.
I think there aren’t that many members of Onecoin who own bitcoins. By the looks of the people in the pictures taken in Onecoin events I highly doubt that vast majority of them even know how to get bitcoins and what a real crypto currency is and how it works.
Onecoin accepting bitcoins is just some marketing bullshit which they hope to arouse the members to strengthen their belief in ponzi coin.
EVERYBODY who’s anybody in cryptocurrency, in ANY country, knew that OneCoin is NOT a cryptocurrency.
Experts have been consulted in China, Taiwan, US, various European countries. They all say OneCoin CANNOT be a cryptocurrency. It has no public blockchain, it has a central exchange, both of which are an ANTITHESIS to cryptocurrency.
In fact, many of the more plausible excuses, like “you’re buying mining tokens” and such are RECENT inventions. They weren’t there at the beginning. This means this is a suspect scam with its pitch that is continually refined.
EXCELLENT article!
Yes…. that was very crafty how they did up the Forbes & Financial IT stories!
And WHAT’S UP with the GOWNS?
That is SO BIZARRE and OVER THE TOP! She should be business-savvy, wearing Max Mara or St John, at best!
THIS is RIDICULOUS! MAKES NO SENSE!
– For a GALA, yes! But for business meetings, it makes absolutely NO SENSE at all, and is VERY DISCREDITING!
I am a business woman and wouldn’t think of wearing gowns to business events or tattered and teared bodices!
SAY WHAT?!
At a park yes! Poolside, yes! Dress-down day, OK!
– But YOUR VERY OWN BUSINESS MEETING PROPER with HUNDREDS OF BUSINESS MEN & WOMEN IN ATTENDANCE?!?
And the STARK RED LIPSTICK is WAY OUTTA’ LINE, too…
But this is just a comment I can make! It just adds to the preposterousness of it all . . .
NOTHING is BUSINESS-PROPER or LEGAL-PROPER! It is all OVER THE TOP, OFF THE CHARTS or hits BELOW THE BELT!
It is just OFF the RICHTER scale, and nowhere in any close proximity to where things should be!
EVERYTHING is OFF!
Time to WAKE UP and smell the coffee! But I am speaking to tea-drinkers, it seems…. ’cause they don’t like my coffee… and ‘this is NOT my cup of tea’….
EXACTLY, This has been a point I have made all along.
They don’t even accept the “supposed” value of their coin themselves yet people believe other merchants will??? That amazes me!
right! very right!
omg, you bet! 100% correct!
ooh yes! that red lipstick just seals rujamama’s fate – the last nail in her coffin, so to speak.
un-friggin-forgivable!
I’ve just heard that Onecoin is not issuing their Mastercard at the moment. Probably more banks are not willing to take the risks.
Seriously, a lots of people trust onecoin because they see recruiters post pictures and videos of them paying for coffee, services using this card.
Many people do not realize that this is just a gift card with reloading capability…
Let us stop this SCAM!!
Went to the website of Macau police. They have previously stopped other Ponzi schemes, so we should all write them an email and inform about the upcoming event in Macau. If that is also cancelled, then it will be all over 😉
fsm.gov.mo/psp/eng/main.html
This was exactly the way the great ponzi UTOKEN began with its collapse. The China government began arresting all the top ponzi pimps.
When I was approached with Onecoin it looked like an exact copy of Utoken. I was not about to be fooled again and began to do my homework. Thus finding the FAKE FORBES COVER.
With UTOKEN investors were given fake utokens… in OneCoin your buying plagiarized education packages (very expensive education packages I might add) and then fake non existing onecoins.
Investors in UTOKEN were fed the same garbage.. millions of stores will start accepting your utokens as payment. Buy cars! Buy jewelry! Even Real-estate!
Looking back I can’t believe I even fell for the bull but these crooks are really good at what they do.
I would again advise and warn people thinking about joining this Onecoin ponzi to check out what happened with UTOKEN…. because the collapse of OneCoin is inevitable!
I found another gem of a document from early 2015 which contradicts much about Onecon claims, and further solidifies the evidence supporting the absence of a blockchain.
SOURCE: slideshare.net/Onecoinplus/onecoin-secrets-revealed-2015-54053389
This is a pseudo technical explanation of how Onecon works, but is mostly plagiarized from various Bitcoin technical papers and sources, including bitcoin wiki.
Often in an attempt to appear authentic, words are substituted and switched around to deter a quick check for plagiarism.
One funny example is how “mining pool” is fabulously referred to as “swimming pools.” And the latter half of the paper is nearly all information about bitcoin, wherein the word “Onecoin” was simply substituted.
Other funny stuff include mentioning that PayPal view Onecoin as their competition, and that Onecoin can be traded like Forex on multiple exchanges around the world (and also talks about how merchants can use it now – in early 2015).
There are MANY inconsistencies within this sloppy document. Most notably, KYC is not mentioned whatsoever.
However, in the only known and hilarious interview with an actual cryptocurrency media group or organization, wLiina Laas, Member of the Board for Estonian Cryptocurrency Association, interviews Ruja and she states:
Q2: “How you are doing KYC?”
A2: “This is the benefit of the centralized approach we choose in the beginning. KYC is done on our website. Whoever takes out more than 2.500 EUR of the system needs to upload the needed documents”
SOURCE: estoniantrader.com/onecoin-scam/
Robert M. Ray, the author of “Onecoin Secrets Revealed” is later mentioned introducing KYC in December, 2015 in comment #92 HERE: behindmlm.com/companies/onecoin/onecoin-change-banks-again-now-using-a-us-bank/
THE BLOCKCHAIN and WALLETS:
A better word for “wallet” is “keychain. A better word for “coin” is “key”.
Since a blockchain is the single ledger of all transactions, any fraction of a “coin” (which is simply represented by a private key imput) can be sent.
PROBLEM:
In the same document by Mr. Ray (and as mentioned several times by Ruja, herself), a single Onecoin is divisible to the eighth decimal point. HOWEVER, this functionality of sending or selling a fraction of a coin is not working in the back office, at leats to my knowledge.
Presently you can only buy/ sell 1.00000000 Onecoins at a time. NOW, WERE MERCHANTS TO COME ABOARD, how would one pay for a $3.00 item!?!
Since a blockchain cares not what amount is sent, be it 1.0, 100.0, 0.05 or 0.0032573 OC, why would there be a restriction on that – or perhaps a better question: HOW could that be restricted!?!
Another great question posed by a Finn was in regards to Coin(un)Safe. Not sure if it was mentioned here on BMLM, but according to OC company, you earn interest on coins locked up in Coin(un)Safe for the 12, 18, 24 months, etc. they are placed there, at various interest rates of 12-15%, etc.
WHERE DO THE NEW COINS TO PAY THIS INTEREST RATE COME FROM!! ARE THEY CREATED FROM THIN AIR (like the rest of them? A spreadsheet? Certainly a blockchain itself does not pay interest, and I know for a fact that Ruja has no idea what a “smart contract” or DAO is! Lol).
So, even within a closed source loop, there are glaring incongruities about how a real blockchain and cryptocurrency works, and the obvious conclusion that Onecoin has neither, but is instead created on Ruja’s laptop, in Excel Spreadsheets – for which keeping track of a 0.0023735 OC fractions of coins, etc., are simply not manageable in the database.
Ps. Any expert cryptographers, mining veterans or more technical bitcoin/ crypto-enthusiasts with stronger background on this, please feel free to analyze this deduction and chime in. Thanks.
That’s a “rapid decline” of the Onecoin ponzi scheme.
OneSave (or some other cliche)
About 18 months ago –forgive me if I am wrong -OneCoin offered interest bearing incentives to affiliates to lock in their OneCoins FOR 12 -18 or 24 MOTHS and they deposits would earn interest of around 12-14%) dependant on duration anyone advise us whether these miraculous returns have materialised -even in thin air of onecoins?
Blockchains don’t generate interest and where have the coins come from are two questions and the third is do any of you believe you will get the interest.
Well Bobby (in Ireland) it did seem a “no brainer” at the time-as you recommended with your uplines including John Barrett. Did you mean a “no brainer” literally or metaphorically
@cryptokill – RE: “CoinSafe” [ie., Coin(un)Safe!]
SEE: youtu.be/mxEV2nJ7I6Y
Clearly “education” is the focus of this pitch, as explained by nearly the entire Roster of Onecoin scammers …NOT!
This CLEARLY DEMONSTRATES that Onecoin INVESTMENT is all about a Securities ROI.
Thanks for reminding us of the real name -CoinSafe
Good luck with your upcoming case
Yes 12% extra interest for not bothering with any education
greed ,greed ,greed