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Blue Whale News, August 7 (Reporter Tang Shiyun)Middle-aged and elderly people are becoming prey to blockchain scams. Recently, a netizen revealed that his parents were addicted to "mining" and even used their own IDs to register and open accounts. Similar discussions attracted many children to complain. The scam of using virtual currency investment as a pretext has actually been going on for many years.

In the name of "blockchain", an elderly person borrowed 250,000 yuan to mine

Xiao Zhu's grandmother's experience is very typical. In the past five or six years, she has been defrauded twice and lost nearly 500,000 yuan. The scam started with a lecture to give out small gifts.

“My grandmother went with a group of people, and they said there were gifts to be given away on the spot. The host of the meeting was the regional general manager of a certain financial company, and many people who had experienced it shared their successful experiences in cryptocurrency trading at the meeting.They will introduce some financial knowledge, pretending to be very formal and high-end; they also say that the country supports the development of the digital economy and has issued some blockchain documents for everyone to see."Xiao Zhu recalled that from then on, grandma would report to the company every day. The old lady was not very good at using the phone, so she directly transferred the money to the staff, who operated it on her behalf. "Maybe one or two coins could be mined every day, and grandma said that she could sell them when the price went up."

At first, my grandmother did make money. She could earn about 20,000 yuan in net profit with a capital of 30,000 yuan. After tasting the sweetness, my grandmother invested part of her retirement savings, but soon she could not withdraw cash from her account.This type of virtual currency fund trading is mostly a game of passing the parcel. Those who enter the market early may indeed make money, but those who enter later will basically lose everything.。

Later, the grandmother was tricked into investing in NFT again. This time, the organization that the grandmother participated in was even larger, with a structure similar to pyramid schemes with commissions distributed layer by layer. A "team" (a team developed by the same online platform) may have hundreds of people. Xiao Zhu revealed that the person who instigated the old man to participateDigital CollectionsThe criminal organizations that invested are very rampant in the local area.Most of the victims were middle-aged and elderly people, one of whom lost 1.2 million yuan, and the amount involved in the case exceeded 10 million yuan."My grandmother was also deceived into taking out a loan of 250,000 yuan. I don't even know which institution was willing to lend it to her."

There are many parents and elders on social networking sites who are addicted to "mining" like Xiaozhu's grandmother.

Many of them don’t even know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, but they still believe that investment will yield huge returns in the future. One interviewee said, “My parents think the virtual currency in the account is the nextBitcoin, it’s just that many people are ignorant and don’t see the value.”

Aircoin targets the lower-end market and the middle-aged and elderly people who want to catch the wealth express train

Virtual currency once developed rapidly, and it is hard for those who missed the opportunity of the times to not want to catch this express train to wealth.

In mainland my country, the virtual currency market has undergone multiple rounds of regulatory crackdowns.In this context, some altcoins and air coins are targeting the sinking market and middle-aged and elderly people who know little about blockchain.They have only a vague understanding of the "virtual currency" mentioned by the organizers and are more easily deceived and misled.

A common type of virtual currency scam claims that there is no cost and high returns, and that "you can earn money by signing in." Because the threshold is low enough and the operation is easy, a large number of middle-aged and elderly people are deceived into joining the scam. They are often deceived into punching in to complete tasks, watching videos and advertisements, etc. in the name of "mining."

Ding Ding's father started mining four or five years ago. The so-called mining here is to light up the lightning symbol on the homepage of the mobile phone app called "π coin" every 24 hours, and the π coins will gradually increase. There is no technical content and no capital investment. In the past five years, Ding's father has accumulated thousands of coins, and even Ding Ding, who was forced to register by his father, has accumulated hundreds of coins without knowing it.

There are many contents on social platforms that directly or implicitly mention the bright prospects of Pi coin, such as a coin worth tens of millions, and the ability to directly use "pi" to buy cars and houses in the future. They say,The launch of Pi coin is the country's way of better equal distribution, so that the poor can live a happy life and the evil rich can be punished.。

Ding's father believed it so much that he even thought about how to deal with relatives who would come to curry favor with him after he got rich. But Ding Ding revealed that there was no way to withdraw these coins.

“My dad hasn't had a proper job for seven or eight years. He wants to be successful but doesn't want to work hard, so he can only rely on this dream.Ding Ding said that her father likes to watch live broadcasts on short video platforms. She has listened to them several times, and most of the content is related to pseudo success studies. There are also many elderly people who are addicted to mining who are imagining the future in the live broadcast room.

Because of his obsession with mining, Ding's father and his family had a falling out. Many interviewees told Blue Whale reporters that many children, relatives and friends were forced to register and open accounts, and the attitudes of the elders were mostly very tough. There were countless quarrels at home because of this matter, and in the end they could only "turn a blind eye".

Virtual currency scams targeting middle-aged and elderly people are not uncommon.They usually use "static income" (profit from cryptocurrency appreciation) and "dynamic income" (profit from developing downlines) as bait to attract the public to invest large amounts of money and time. The victims often lose all their money and their families are broken up.Currently, virtual currency has become a new means of cross-border cyber fraud crimes. Fujian, Shandong and other places have issued relevant risk warnings, warning of the risks of illegal fundraising with virtual currency.

Most scams involve pyramid schemes and financial fraud, and the possibility of recovering funds is zero

A person in the currency industry told the reporter,Most of the projects that induce middle-aged and elderly people to speculate in cryptocurrencies are disguised as blockchain and are actually Ponzi schemes. These coins have no value at all and are not circulated in mainstream exchanges.He believes that this type of investment is like "riding on a donkey with a carrot hanging in front of it". The profits seem to be in sight, but in fact they are out of reach. "You dig for others to buy every day, isn't that unrealistic?"

On September 4, 2017, the People's Bank of China and seven other departments issued the "Notice on Preventing Risks of Token Issuance and Financing", which clearly pointed out that token issuance and financing refers to the financing entity raising so-called "virtual currencies" such as Bitcoin and Ethereum from investors through the illegal issuance and circulation of tokens. It is essentially an act of illegal public financing without approval, and is suspected of illegal issuance of token tickets, illegal issuance of securities, illegal fundraising, financial fraud, pyramid schemes and other illegal and criminal activities.

Among them, virtual currency pyramid selling is one of the main types of virtual currency crimesThe reason is that virtual currency has the characteristics of anonymity and technology, which makes it very easy to penetrate into the field of pyramid schemes. The aforementioned person in the currency circle mentioned that "now the old pyramid schemers have switched to become blockchain experts. The elderly do not understand this, but they are easily fooled by the high-tech shell."

PlusToken, a major cryptocurrency scam, once used the guise of blockchain technology to lure 40 billion yuan with high returns. The scam swept more than 100 countries and regions around the world, with more than 2 million participants. But Plus coin is actually a virtual currency, and its main culprit was finally sentenced to 11 years in prison and fined 6 million yuan for organizing and leading pyramid selling activities.

Once investors enter such organizations, it is difficult to turn back in time. A person in the cryptocurrency circle who once participated in the Pangu community revealed that the atmosphere in the community is very extreme and people in it cannot stand bearish talk. "If you say something bad, a group of people will jump out to refute and ridicule you, and you may be banned and kicked out in a while. In this so-called mining community, most people are brainwashed."

What’s even more cruel is that even if the victim reports the case, it is difficult to recover the funds. The person who organized the scam may have fled early, making it even more difficult to protect their rights.

Most descriptions of the prospects of blockchain are beautiful, but making money is not that easy.CryptocurrencyBitcoin has continued to plummet in recent days. After falling below $60,000 on August 4, it suddenly plunged again around 8:00 on August 5, falling below $53,000 at one point, hitting a new low in recent months. According to Coinglass data, more than 55,000 people had their positions liquidated in the past 24 hours, with a total liquidation amount of $177 million.