Fake Partnerships Between Crypto Projects and Multinationals
There was recently a story that was published in many crypto-centric magazines all over the internet. Samsung had supposedly partnered up with Lithuanian blockchain startup, CopPay, in a bid to start accepting cryptocurrency at their stores in three Baltic countries.
Sources
Baltic States Consumers Can Buy Samsung Products With Cryptocurrencies? - Cryptovest
Samsung Accepts Crypto For Payment In Partnership With CoPay - Coinfrenzy
Copay had written an announcement on Medium and different news media had picked up the story, without fact checking with Samsung. Later it came out that Samsung had officially denied the existence of such a deal. Luckily, most of the popular crypto news outlets have since removed or updated their articles after Samsung issued their statements.
Wait There's More
This isn't the first time that startups in the crypto industry invent partnerships between big multinational companies and themselves. Blockchain company carVertical also made an announcement that they had signed a deal with car manufacturer BMW. The latter came out with a statement that they had just made use of their publicly available API and they there was never a deal or partnership.
No Isolated Cases
Then there's also IOTA, who had mentioned Microsoft being its direct partner, when they announced their new data marketplace platform. Microsoft had to come out with a statement that there was no partnership between the two companies.
It isn't 100% clear that IOTA made any false statements purposefully, but it could be argued that they should have practiced more due diligence before publishing any statements regarding their future 'collaboration'.
The Verge Way
There are other ways to get hype for your project through dubious means, even without directly announcing a partnership with a multinational. Take Verge for example, that announced "the largest partnership in crypto to date!" without even mentioning their future partner. This announcement came with strings attached, in the form of a 75 million SVG donation target that had to be reached in order for them to "claim" the partnership.
All of this just shows how careful you have to be when reading recent news stories, especially if you are going to let them influence your cryptocurrency investments. While regular companies are very eager to jump on the blockchain bandwagon, blockchain companies are just as eager to tie themselves to famous brand names.
Don't believe everything you read!
Check out Mannabase if you want to receive a free basic income
Receive free Litecoins every 5 minutes
Get FREE basic income through Swiftdemand
Join STEEMFOLLOWER to gain more exposure on STEEMIT
The 4 links above are referral links and support this blog
Even if the partnership is real, it just means that the crypto team is good at networking, while the multinational wants to look cool. For example, Iota really has a partnership with Bosch, a company that is known for producing excellent power tools, not for studying cryptography.
Great advice. I usually try to do my due diligence to vet a crypto before I throw any money or endorsement behind it. Most times if it sounds too good to be true, I assume it is and move on!
Congratulations! This post has been chosen as one of the daily Whistle Stops for The STEEM Engine!
You can see your post's place along the track here: The Daily Whistle Stops, Issue 213 (8/01/18)
The STEEM Engine is an initiative dedicated to promoting meaningful engagement across Steemit. Find out more about us and join us today.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Daan from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.