Ponzi Scam Warning: Gemneon.io
We were recently contacted by a company called Gemneon, a “cryptocurrency investment” company that promises minimum returns. The company wanted to hire advertising from CCN.com. They were willing to spend $5000 per day. Our publisher, Jonas Borchgrevink, declined, and promised to investigate their company.
Elements of a Ponzi Scheme
On their webpage, it states:
Working with GEMNEON is a straightforward way to secure your future. We provide instant profits which is a percentage of the amount you invest. Our team consists of the most experienced traders with a great deal of knowledge almost guaranteeing profits. Registered in Hong Kong, GEM INVESTMENTS LIMITED bears the registration number 2751720. You are more than welcome to look up information about our company.
We did find their business registration under “list of newly registered businesses. ” They registered last October. We are aware that the pro-business leanings of the Hong Kong government make it relatively easy to create a business. The sheer volume of companies registered in the country make that plain. So we sent the following complaint to the regulator. We urge anyone who has been roped in by this scam to do the same:
Complaint Against GEMNEON.io by on Scribd
The way to spot a ponzi scheme is when it promises a certain amount of profit. Really anything besides an agreed-upon certificate of deposit or a savings account cannot promise profits. Mutual funds and other reliable earners will tell you their average profits. But in investing, profits can never be promised. Profits are the motivation for doing a good job investing. They aren’t a guarantee, least of all in cryptocurrency.
Spotting A Ponzi Scheme
GEMNEON accepts fiat and crypto deposits. They claim to play the markets. It’s particularly interesting that they’re promising 6% returns (at a minimum) when we routinely see losses far larger than that as of late across the crypto market.
A Ponzi scheme doesn’t actually have to make any money. It just has to get more new customers than the day before indefinitely. As new customers come in, their deposits pay off the old customers. Bernie Madoff conducted this scheme in the multiple millions.
There are high-yield investment products that can return 6% or more on a given day, but they won’t guarantee as much. Especially in crypto investing, there are lots of ways to make multiple-percentage points per day. But you’re much better off learning how to invest and employing bots on your own than you are entrusting your money to pop-up shops based in Hong Kong or anywhere else.
CCN.com opted not to advertise for this outfit. We’ve been through this long enough to know that it would have hurt our readers more than it would have helped us. All the same, we feel obligated to tell our readers: steer clear of GEMNEON.io or anything else that promises you fixed daily returns on your cryptocurrency. It’s a recipe for victimization at best.
