In a May 25th press-release addressing digital tokens, the Singapore government has singled out OneCoin and BitConnect as Ponzi pyramid schemes.

After fleshing out what digital tokens are, the government moves on to “What else could jeopardize my digital token investment?”

Your digital tokens are stored in a digital wallet. Similar to digital token intermediaries, the digital wallet could be hacked.

You could lose all your digital tokens as a result.

On top of that, fraud has already occurred with companies that claim to offer digital token-related products and services.

Initial coin offerings disguised as Ponzi schemes are not uncommon.

Platforms like OneCoin and BitConnect have been shut down for their pyramid schemes, with BitConnect’s price crashing from $452 to $9.

Other fraud cases see pump-and-dump maneuvers, where the price of a digital token is artificially inflated by insiders through false and misleading exaggerations.

When the price reaches a feverish peak, these insiders then cash out en masse, all at once, leading to a price collapse.

Finally, there is also the risk that you may not be able to exit your digital token investment easily.

There may not be enough active buyers and sellers in the secondary market for digital tokens. You might never get the chance to cash out and liquidate your investment.

OneCoin launched in late 2014.

The Ponzi scheme allowed investors to withdraw subsequently invested funds up until January 2017, wherein ROI withdrawals were permanently suspended.

Internally that signaled a drawn-out collapse over the past fourteen months.

Most of OneCoin’s management and top investors have already cashed out and moved on.

BitConnect surfaced in late 2016 and was the first MLM ICO lending Ponzi scheme.

By late 2017 the scam was on its last legs, prompting BitConnect’s owners to cash out and go into hiding.

BitConnect collapsed a month later in January 2018. Over ten days $2.4 billion was wiped off of BCC’s publicly traded value.

Sadly despite MLM Ponzi schemes like OneCoin and BitConnect causing consumer damages running well into the millions, the Singapore government isn’t interested in regulating them.

Digital tokens are not regulated because they are not issued by the Singapore government and are not legal tender.

There is no legislative protection for those who lose money from investing in digital tokens.

Instead they’ve adopted a “fingers in our ears, not our problem” approach.

Because y’know, that’ll protect Singaporean consumers from MLM crypto scammers.