Switzerland brings the hammer down to fake cryptocurrency, "E-Coin"

Good news came out of Switzerland early yesterday morning, as the Swiss Regulator Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) shut down the scam coin known as "E-coin". Thus far the developers of the project had acquired $4.2 million.

The fake cryptocurrency was supposedly running on a blockchain (distributed ledger) when it was really just stored on local servers. So it was never an actual cryptocurrency, but just someone taking advantage of the hot cryptocurrency space we see where investors are willing to throw their money at any coin they can speculate on. Investors were led to believe the coin would be backed up by 80% tangible assets.

The organization behind E-coin accused of the fraud was called the QUID PRO QUO Association. There were two more entities involved in the fraud process, DIGITAL TRADING AG and Marcelo Group AG.

This isn't the only coin FINMA is looking into, they are currently looking into 11 other coins that have been suspected of being scams also. It is good to see a little regulation in the space as it has seen very little over it's brief lifetime.

As I've stated in previous articles, there's a reason why you do your due diligence before investing in any cryptocurrency. Most of them are not scams, but since the space is so new, people see it as opportunity to exploit naive investors.

I looked across the internet for E-coin and found a website on them. I'm 99% sure it was them from reading their goals and objectives, it was pretty clear they were "pie in the sky." According to their website they held the ICO in February 2017 and E-coin went live on exchanges on May 22nd, per Coin Market Cap Data.

Pardon my french, but I'm calling bullshit on them having support from one million businesses (note photo above). If you look at their Twitter, you will notice the last tweet was on September 4th, and before that was August 11th, and before that it was May 11th. This project was clearly a scam and looking at both the website and their twitter, it was not a well put together scam to say the least.

Another give away was their team member photos, leaving virtually no information on them outside their position at E-coin and no external links to LinkedIn or other social media of the team. A standard across cryptocurrency is to leave background information and external links to the social media or websites of team members. Also, it could be me but I think they put the wrong photo Tom Reutzel.

Regulation is still very much needed for this new space where people are looking to make a quick buck off the new blockchain technology that seemingly now solves every problem. Unfortunately, blockchain can't solve all our problems like many of the ICOs and current coins state. If you are new to cryptocurrency, or don't know much on the space I suggest you check out Blockgeeks. This website is a great place to start and understand what blockchain technology is and what it is capable of.

Tell me what you guys see for the future of regulation in cryptocurrency in comments below!

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Disclaimer: This is not investment advice, always do your own research. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based on your own personal circumstances.