A few thoughts you can skip.
I've originally posted a similar article about Plus Token on READ.CASH a few days ago and got an astonishing eleven views! I reposted on Uptrennd and got just one comment. So I guess I was posting in the wrong place these articles as I'm sure the PUBLISH0X community would find this more interesting and get a few more interactions. The article I'm publishing here contains some parts as screenshots and information used in the one I've posted on read.cash and Uptrennd, but it is partially re-written and contains more information for the Publish0x audience. I will try not to make similar mistakes when choosing platforms with low visibility and token farming accounts.
This is not about money. In read.cash they have a system that pays a small amount no matter the visibility or quality of your posts. I don't take part in discussions there and don't post frequently. I still try to test the platform, but after publishing a dozen posts, I just got 10 views average on each. Pretty disappointing and I will probably not continue there. Uptrennd on the other hand counts as views members that randomly scroll between posts and just read the title without any more interaction. So for me the only thing that counts there are the upvotes given and the comments.
These are also disappointing as most come from moderators, while members are just trying to farm upvotes with silly comments that prove they didn't spend time to read more than the first sentence of the article. There are exceptions of course but they should have been the rule instead. It certainly needs a lot of hard work to reach a certain quality state. Both as a platform and as a community. I might have been harsh answering to other members criticizing this platform but that was because I genuinely thought they could change things easily. It seems that this is a long and hard process that might not bring the desired results. I accept that I might be wrong with my initial assessment in the review I posted on Publish0x, but I will give them some more time hoping that they will deliver what was promised.
Anyway, this is my post concerning the latest developments with the infamous Plus Token Ponzi and how this scam is still affecting the market one year after their collapse.
PLUS TOKEN
General Information
Plus Token is a collapsed Ponzi Scheme operating in China and SE Asia. Plus Token has extracted more than 3 Billion USD in the form of various cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, and XRP. They even announced their exit scam adding a note in a Bitcoin transaction saying: "Sorry, we have run".
Source: Boxmining
The Ponzi Scheme collapsed in June 2019. Initially, some payment problems appeared which were blamed by the Ponzi operators on high mining fees. Withdrawals were halted and a few middle-level promoters of the Ponzi Scheme were arrested on the island of Vanuatu by Chinese law enforcement personnel on June 27th, 2019. It seems that the head of operations was located in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The arrests had diplomatic implications as well, as it was seen by the US and Australia as a Chinese attempt to grow their influence in the Pacific.
In total, the amount of funds this Ponzi amassed was valued at their time of exit more than 3 Billion USD. They've amassed:
180,000-200,000 Bitcoins
6,4 million Ethereum
26 million EOS
~500 million XRP
(Source)
The title of this post could have easily been named "The Plus-Token Effect - Part 3" as this is the 3rd wave of massive selling of digital assets illegally possessed by the collapsed Ponzi Scheme "Plus Token". The first one began right after the Ponzi collapsed and the operators started efforts to obfuscate Bitcoin transactions through mixers in July 2019. Massive selling of Bitcoins started and ended around December 2019, after the Ponzi managed to successfully liquidate around 165,000 Bitcoins. They started selling during February as well, when prices recovered but the March events and crash of markets worldwide stalled their plans. So they waited for prices to recover.
New Developments
Plus token seems to be on the news again bringing uncertainty in the markets as usual. The collapsed Ponzi is trying to cash out lately as much of their cryptocurrency holdings as possible and this can be a cause for concern as they create selling pressure that both last two times created a negative outlook for the market.
In July 2019 they began selling the Bitcoins they had collected from their illegal activities and ended up selling around 160,000 BTC after obfuscating transactions with the use of various mixing services. According to reports from on-chain analysis researchers, these Bitcoins ended in exchanges like Huobi and OKEx.
Source: Twitter
Lately we keep reading reports of Plus Token moving their altcoins stacks the last few days. First it was XRP:
XRP
On June 19th, they began moving XRP (284 million) which according to reports ended in exchanges like HitBTC, Huobi, and OKEx. Huobi and OKEx were used in the past by Plus Token to sell mixed Bitcoins through their OTC markets. They have also used BINANCE as well.
150m XRP moved (source: bithomp)
134,7m XRP moved (source: bithomp)
EOS
On June 22nd, Plus Token moved 26 million EOS to an anonymous address.
26,3 million EOS moved (Source: https://bloks.io/)
Ethereum
789,534 ETH were transferred yesterday out of a wallet marked as (Plus Token Ponzi 2) on etherscan.
~790million ETH moved (Source: Etherscan)
Bitcoin:
Meanwhile, it seems that the remaining 22K BTC that Plus Token still holds are on the move as well, as a researcher that goes with the Twitter name @ErgoBTC posted that the Bitcoins are moving into mixers again.
22k BTC moving in mixing services (Source: Twitter)
Plus Token certainly creates major waves when moving the stolen coins and usually they try to sell them through OTC desks of the aforementioned exchanges. It is a fact that the selling pressure they create hurts prices and the whole market outlook can turn negative again if all these coins are dumped. Plus Token Ponzi has created countless problems in the whole market so far and the culprits remain at large. The Chinese authorities have only arrested a few low-level members of the organization and as we can see the high-level figures of this scam have not been found yet.
Thoughts:
The market has stabilized and there was selling pressure at 10K by traders and miners. I don't think that prices dropped yesterday because of the Ponzi selling. It was traders that anticipate the Plus Token effect on the market. Perhaps they've already begun selling and I don't think that they will stop in a few days. I hope that the market will absorb the sale of these coins without problems but it certainly damages the price prospects right now, and can easily turn the market bearish in case they just begin dumping the coins to finish earlier.
On another point, they still hold a large number of Ethereum. If the numbers reported are correct, this is around 5% of the whole Ethereum in circulation and we should be expecting more ETH to move out of their wallets soon.
Another issue is the mixing services they use which are not able to obfuscate transactions and at least 90% of them are traceable and Chainalysis along with @ErgoBTC and other researchers were able to identify.
Chainalysis
Also, this chart from 2019 explains the exact movement of the stolen funds between mixers, Huobi Exchange, and their OTC desk.
Source Chainalysis (link)
The latest movements out of the Plus Token stash arrive during a difficult time for Bitcoin and the crypto market on its whole. There is increased fear and already certain major players are waiting in the sidelines for a potential dip. I'm not writing anything to spread fear but instead to inform about what is happening. Perhaps Tether will bring another billion USDT quickly and investors cover all the damage, while Bitcoin's price remains at 9k. Still, this didn't happen the last two times Plustoken was moving funds. From what I noticed the major participants always waited for the dust to settle and rebuild from there.
Header Image Source
Originally posted on my account on read.cash- Modified for Publish0x
