Bitcoin Daily: Alleged Chinese Crypto Mining Scam Nets $11M

An alleged new digital currency Ponzi scheme out of China, Antimatter Kingdom (AK), has seemingly brought in bitcoin valued at $11 million in under a single month of operation, Cointelegraph reported.

AK reportedly called itself “a super mining application group” running on the CXC chain with its rollout in April.

It maintains that it has taken in 180,000 bitcoins, but it seems that the effort brought a figure nearer to $11 million in bitcoin. A wallet associated with the scam took in 1,607 bitcoins at the time of the Cointelgraph report.

CXC, for its part, purports to compose a “revolutionary blockchain business structure,” which lets it “compete with the cruel cosmic entropy law and make the development of commercial civilization lasting and orderly.”

Investors were reportedly able to harness the cosmic prospects of AK via different cloud mining efforts. The effort comes on the heels of the PlusToken scheme, which had taken in $1.4 billion in bitcoin last year. The effort reportedly attained levels not seen before for a digital currency scam.

As previously reported, the cost of crypto fraud reached $4.3 billion last year. In 2017 and 2018, however, fraudulent activity and different schemes were $3 billion combined. And 90 percent of the stolen funds originated from only six broad schemes.

Digital currency has become more widespread as of bitcoin’s introduction more than 10 years ago, and many individuals are attracted to it as a vehicle for becoming rich. Those behind Ponzi schemes use that naivete, experts say.

One expert called it “traditional crime dressed up,” per a past report, and noted that the scams prey on an individual’s fear or confusion about the latest trends or missing them.

Reports of high percentages of weak checks on digital currency in addition to reported fraud has led to calls for regulations on the new forms of currency.