Bit-Z exchange defrauding developers with fake 'airdrop promotions' for their coin?

in #cryptocurrency7 years ago (edited)

Recently Lampix (PIX) was listed on Bit-Z following a listing process that saw the developers transfer 200 Ethers' worth of their token to Bit-Z for an airdrop promotion.

Bit-Z commenced this airdrop promotion with these rules:

1. The event is divided into 3 phases, one for every 24 hours, bonus will be divided into 1,500,000 PIX, 500,000 PIX and 500,000 PIX separately:

12:00, March 14, 2018 (UTC/GMT+08:00) to 12:00, March 15, 2018 (UTC/GMT+08:00)
Bonus: 500,000 PIX

12:00, March 15, 2018 (UTC/GMT+08:00) to 12:00, March 16, 2018 (UTC/GMT+08:00)
Bonus:1,500,000 PIX

12:00, March 16, 2018 (UTC/GMT+08:00) to 12:00, March 17, 2018 (UTC/GMT+08:00)
Bonus: 500,000 PIX

2. Trade PIX and complete Level 3 certification to be qualified for the bonus of that phase.

3. Bonus for each phase will be sent equally to all eligible Bit-Z community users within 1 business day.

4. Bit-Z reserves the right of final explanation.

Upon completion of the first airdrop period, traders noticed something odd. They only received 76.87576875 PIX each. This would mean that 6,504 unique traders had registered on Bit-Z, completed level three verification (including license/passport submission, as well as a picture with "Bit-Z" and the date written on a paper while holding said ID), and traded PIX on the exchange. The minimum amount of PIX to set a sell order was upped to 1,000 upon listing.

A few different points show the lie of this 'promotion':

  1. The total volume of PIX traded was around $80,000 . This would mean that each trader could have traded, at most, 351 PIX or so - when the minimum was 1,000 for a sell order, and multiple people traded back and forth.

  2. Lampix only has 3,000 followers. And some 1,400 people in their telegram. This would mean that more than double their followers registered, deposited PIX, did L3 verification, and traded 1k. All within the first day.

  3. The Lampix rich list only shows roughly 2,400 active addresses. Again, Bit-Z is arguing that nearly 2.5x the active Lampix wallets registerd, verified, and traded in one day. All while keeping the volume down to $80k for the day.

  4. Looking at the rich list on Etherscan, the only address that could be Bit-Z, still has the same 2,500,000 tokens deposited roughly seven days ago. This would suggest that they aren't distributing the tokens meant for the airdrop, but simply distributing tokens collected as 'fees' and keeping the 'airdrop tokens' for themselves, to sell at a later date.

(Proof: https://etherscan.io/token/0x8effd494eb698cc399af6231fccd39e08fd20b15?a=0x30146933a3a0babc74ec0b3403bec69281ba5914 )

If this were isolated to one token, it would be one thing. But the bigger fear is that every token listing on Bit-Z is being required to do a 200 ETH 'airdrop promotion' which is, in fact, a complete fraud. This fraud is being perpetrated not only on traders, but also on developers who genuinely believe they are paying for a promotion to benefit their investors.

Bit-Z promotion page: https://support.bit-z.pro/hc/en-us/articles/360001890273?flash_digest=05d084f56414f4b15e3ac251ce0eef5a0748e34a