China’s Olympic Committee Sounds Alarm On Potential Blockchain Fraud

The 2020 Summer Olympics, which were to take place in Tokyo, have been rescheduled for 2021 as the spread of the coronavirus leaps over international borders and outruns human efforts to contain it.

But the greedy “sport” of stealing people’s money – in this case, through a blockchain scam – still has crooks going for the gold.

The Chinese Olympic Committee announced that it has received numerous warnings about illegal marketing related to the planned 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

As reported by Cointelegraph.com, scammers use official-sounding names, such as the phony “World Olympic Sports Foundation,” to pitch fake investments in special products and “commercial developments” pertaining to the Olympics. As part of the scam, the crooks may make reference to the Tokyo Olympics Torch Relay. They then claim to be using blockchain technology.

However, the International Olympic Committee holds the rights to the numerous trademarks for Olympic symbols, including the torch relay, according to the Switzerland-based World Intellectual Property Organization.

The Chinese Olympic Committee cautioned people to remember that official Olympic activities have a strict approval process and rules for gaining sponsors and soliciting donations.

China is not the only country dealing with cryptocurrency issues. As reported on Monday (April 6), 11 lawsuits have been filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, alleging that the defendants violated U.S. securities laws. The lawsuits charge that seven cryptocurrency issuers and four crypto exchanges sold billions of dollars in unregistered assets. Allegedly, the defendants failed to meet registration requirements and the token exchanges violated exchange and broker-dealer registration rules.

The lawsuits make the charges against the exchanges Binance, Bibox, BitMex and KuCoin, as well as issuers Tron, Block.one, Bancor, Civic, Kybercoin, Status and Quantstamp.