TLDR: There seems to be a large ponzy scheme going on in Latin America. Can reddit help put an end to it?We've all heard about the great Bitconnect scam that made many people lose a lot of money. Regardless of whether you think they deserved it or not, such projects create a bad reputation around crypto currencies and probably scare away many people that showed some interest initially. There now seems to be another one of these schemes developing at large scale in Latin America.My girlfriend first introduced me to AirbitClub a few months ago because some friends of hers had invested money in it and were apparently making some profits from it. Since she knew I was familiar with crypto currencies she asked me whether I thought it was something worth putting money in. Just from the description she made of it I quickly saw signs of a ponzi scheme and told her to stay away from it and warn her friends that it is likely to be a pyramid scheme.I had forgotten about that project until my recent visit to Peru. Over there I discovered the project is still alive and growing. I saw it advertised in the streets. A lot of people seemed to have heard about it and that was the only link they had to bitcoin. A taxi driver showed a sign saying "Bitcoin is accepted here. " and after talking to him about it he told me it was actually about Airbit and that he had been invested in it for 2 years.It seems this probable scam has reached out to a lot of people, people with little knowledge on crypto currencies. When this bursts many people will lose money and it will certainly have a very negative effect on crypto's reputation in Latin America.I have only visited Peru for a short while so it would be nice to hear from some people living there or in another Latin American country to see if the scam has indeed such a large reach.I know a lot of people on Reddit are very knowledgeable on investigating scams and might want to have a look at this one. Maybe there is a way to counter-act it and help put an end to it?It's sad there are still so many uneducated people falling for these scams and I feel like it is part of our duty to spread the word and try to stop them from growing further. Education is really the most powerful tool for adoption and we shouldn't let scammers be the first ones to "educate" people into a scam.Hopefully this post gains some traction and has some positive impact. In any case, I hope that Airbit won't reach the level Bitconnect reached.
Submitted September 08, 2019 at 12:29PM
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