60 Minutes Australia just did a piece on why AusCoin is a scam.

60 Minutes in Australia just aired a news report on cryptocurrency, the recent boom and failing ICO, AusCoin. In it they interview a successful crypto trader, a ex-carpenter turned USI-Tech shill, and they investigate the holes and empty promises in AusCoin's ICO.

You can check out the report here, behind a free sign-up wall

My thoughts:

60 Minutes has sadly gone downhill in recent years and is generally lousy journalism but it was a great piece that will expose bitcoin to many new faces around the country. I think it was fairly balanced with it's approach on Bitcoin investment and the high associated risks by speaking with a down-to-earth trader that's made $20 Million in the last year.

They also confront a former carpenter that's turned to promoting the ponzi scheme - USI-Tech. He comes off looking like an absolute moron when he says that he doesn't even know what a Ponzi scheme is, but then later says he does know.

But the big part of this piece was it's exposé on AusCoin and namely the shadowy promises made by the AusCoin team. AusCoin is an ICO that promises to roll out 1200 Bitcoin ATMs, (that will also buy/sell AusCoin) around Australasia. Although the piece was certainly very biased, I think the questions and concerns raised are valid.

A few months back, I read the first iteration of the AusCoin whitepaper and it was rubbish:

• Empty promises of revenue sharing the earnings from the ATMs with no details on the mechanism for paying out the dividends.
• What's essentially a 50% pre-mine to AusCoin team, meaning every $100 you invest is immediately worth $50.
• Unclear details about future "mining".
• Development team coins won't be time-locked so would have to trust them to not unload the coins whenever they need money.

Apparently, the AusCoin team has revisited the Whitepaper and fixed a lot of things - including removing promises of revenue share - which begs the question, what's the point of AusCoin?

Would love to know your thoughts on this report or AusCoin in general - let me know in the comments below.