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- PlusToken’s Ponzi scam continues to influence the price performance of Ethereum and Bitcoin.
- The scam funds have entered the ETH richlist.
As CNF reported, the PlusToken scam occurred mid-year. Users of the PlusToken wallet reported irregularities in their transactions. It was later confirmed that the users’ funds were withdrawn without their consent. Users have started using the wallet attracted by the alleged benefit of receiving 6% to 18% return on their investment per month.
It is estimated that the perpetrators fled with more than 3 billion dollars in cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. Although some of PlusToken’s members were arrested, it is suspected that others remain free with an active participation in the trade of stolen funds.
Did the PlusToken scam influence the cryptocurrency market?
Facts are showing that the PlusToken’s Ponzi scam has had a direct influence on price of BTC, ETH and the crypto market. Stolen funds are estimated at 190 million BTC and reach the sum of 800,000 ETH. The funds have been traded in recent months.
One of the main causes of the bearish market that affected the price of the cryptomarket was the trading of these funds, according to analysts. In the case BTC, the funds have been dumped into the market at an average of 1300 BTCs sold each day. The effect of this move is an increase in the selling pressure of BTC.
For this reason it is reasonable to conclude that an increase in the selling pressure on BTC led to a fall in prices and a bearish market from which the main cryptocurrencies are still recovering.
On the other hand the stolen ETH funds seem to follow a different pattern. However, funds stolen in ETH and BTC have the ability to influence the market for a long time. Perpetrators can increase or decrease the selling pressure for any of these cryptocurrencies at any time. This would make the market more vulnerable to volatility.
So far none of the major exchanges of cryptocurrencies are taking measures to prevent trade in these funds.
I believe these were addresses used to either sell or payout to PlusToken users via Huobi from January through late June, corresponding with the scam bust dates.
These totals are a WIP and there is a significant amount of self-transfer within this cluster.
— 🏴∴manual data entry specialist∴🏴 (@ErgoBTC) November 21, 2019
PlusToken Ponzi scam funds reach richlist of ETH
According to the etherescan website, funds stolen regarding the PlusToken scam have entered the top list of the richest ETH adresses. As mentioned above, the funds in ETH are estimated at 800,000 which estimates to around 120 million US dollars.
In the image above you can also see that the address indicated with the funds has more than one million transactions. It is an active address and although in the list is accompanied by exchanges with large transaction volumes, the direction of the scam stands out. From the top 10 only the address of the Wrapped Ether approaches the transaction volume of the fraud funds.
However, the difference between the two directions remains significant. Stolen funds have twice as many transactions.
The price of the Ethereum is, at the time of publishing the article, $ 144 USD and has presented losses of 1.23% in the last 24 hours. It remains to be seen whether the current state of the market remains and what role PlusToken’s stolen funds will play in future performance.
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