Like most scams, it will be years before Bitconnect’s operators have felt the full weight of their actions. However, the US government wants victims to help bring the $2.5 billion crypto Ponzi scheme to justice. FBI Wants to Talk to Bitconnect Victims The FBI is looking to talk to people victimized by the Bitconnect scheme. It is publicly taking applications and information via its website. The...
Three university scholars – two from the University of Florida and one from Princeton – have concluded what many veteran cryptocurrency enthusiasts have long known and loudly preached: pump-and-dump schemes are bad. In a new paper currently in progress by Tao Li, Donghwa Shin, and Baolian Wang, the scholars provide evidence that market manipulation schemes “are detrimental to the liquidity and...
The great cryptocurrency bear market of 2018 may have put a damper on speculative investor interest in this nascent asset class, but it does not seem to have led to much of a slowdown in the number of new altcoins being released on the market. CMC Reaches 2,000 Listed Cryptocurrencies To wit, cryptocurrency resource site CoinMarketCap hit a new milestone on Friday, as its market cap rankings now...
It seems the long saga of Josh Garza finally comes to a close. Though he had a legion of followers at one point who swore to death that he was not a scammer, it is now evident that he was, in fact, a scammer, and is now a convicted one. The only hope is that this means there will be no further activity from him, at least not in the cryptocurrency space. He’s had a career of scamming, from the...
The Paycoin saga is finally coming to a close. As you can see in this document, sent to victims of the Josh Garza pyramid scheme called GAW Miners, Paycoin, et cetera, Garza is scheduled to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud on June 1st. He was previously facing three charges, but high-powered law firm Ballard Spahr did precisely as predicted in our last article, whittling the charges down...
It’s been a long time since we’ve heard much from Josh Garza. At last glance, he was facing charges of fraud from the Securities and Exchange Commission and much of his army of GAWesome supporters had gone silent. The SEC case continues, and earlier this month Garza finally responded to the charges with a long-winded “pleading of the fifth.” This response to the allegations comes after numerous...
“The poor and the needy are selfish and greedy.” -The Smiths Oh Cryptsy, you've done it again. This time it's not losing customer deposits for months, robbing them of proper exchange rates, hiding customer deposits without telling them, or locking up large sums of money. No one has (yet) sued you over this one. No, this time you've gone and tied your future to the future of Paycoin, the most scam...
It seems the legal troubles for Josh Garza and GAW Miners have only just begun. Last week, CCN reported that Mississippi Power was suing Geniuses at Work for more than $300,000 in unpaid electrical bills. Now, disenfranchised investors and dissatisfied customers have decided to pursue the idea of a potential legal option, with the creation of a website under the direction of one Dave Fisher. The...
In a statement released to CCN and a few other outlets this morning, which is available in full below, Litecoin Association Director Andrew Vegetabile urges the Paycoin community to "put their foot down" in regards to the actions of Homero Josh Garza, the owner of GAW miners. Garza is the CEO of the widely-defamed "Geniuses at Work" corporation whose antics have earned him and his company a less...
GAW Miners, the often embroiled cloud mining and hardware production company, is presently facing a lawsuit in the Southern District of Mississippi, Eastern Division, in the amount of $346,647.29 "plus all pre- and post-judgment interest, costs, and attorneys' fees." The lawsuit centers around GAW's unpaid electric bills to Mississippi Power Company for their mining facility run in Purvis, MS...
The issues at Paybase, Paycoin and GAW Miners that have festered over the past month have now finally come to a head. Paybase will be ceasing operations on April 30th, 2015, in accordance with a SEC and DOJ investigation into the actions and business practices of one Josh Garza. Paybase red flags surfaced weeks ago As we reported here at CCN on March 23rd, Twitter and Reddit were ablaze with...
Note: the following is an opinion piece. Josh Garza, the embattled CEO of GAW Miners and the man that many in the Bitcoin space believe to be the most successful con artist since Charles Ponzi himself, has decided to deploy his cult-like following in a campaign of harassment. This was brought our attention by the man himself, in the following e-mail sent to CCN's owner, Jonas Borchgrevink...
Bitcoin exchange Paybase Monday has shutdown withdrawals from its users, causing a fury on Twitter and throughout their user base, as another exchange closure is feared. Paybase founder Josh Garza has been unavailable for comments, with many users claiming he blocks their account if pressed on this issue on Twitter. Garza has a controlling interest in the Bitcoin mining firm GAW Miners, along...
Last month, I reported that PayBase, the subsidiary of GAW Miners responsible for the administration of PayCoin, would open enrollment for a “buyback program” on the first of February. When that didn't happen, I decided to give them some leeway – the complexity of it all and the end result of so many people getting their promised $20 per coin seemed like it might warrant a reasonable delay. Read...
Recent news has seen a lot of turbulence surrounding the launch of Paycoin and its progenitor, GAW Miners CEO Josh Garza. A polarizing argument has arisen over the value of Paycoin, the Peercoin fork which many feel has too many promised deliverables to be real. At issue, is the perceived value of Paycoin. In a Google Hangout a few months back, Garza promised that PayBase would make it difficult...
Today, altcoin exchange ShapeShift.io formally removed PayCoin (XPY), GAW CEO Josh Garza's controversial altcoin, from their list of accepted coins. Citing PayCoin's (alleged) broken promise to buy PayCoins at $20 each, ShapeShift considers PayCoin a fraud. Also read: Coin-Swap Retires Some Altcoins PayCoin Delisted from ShapeShift.io ShapeShift made the announcement in a Reddit post. They...
Josh Garza's speech at The North American Bitcoin Conference (TNABC) in Miami coming up on January 16th has turned into a critical Q & A session as a result of community pressure. There is a growing group of people who want to have Josh Garza removed as a speaker and PayBase removed as a sponsor. They have asked for this due to their concerns that PayBase and GAWMiners is a scam or worse. The...
PayCoin--the much-hyped altcoin developed by GAW's Josh Garza--launched on December 12 to much fanfare and a highly-questioned top-tier market cap ranking. However, the PayCoin price has plunged since December 29, perhaps in part due to the recent PayBase security issues, as well as confusion about the full functionality PayBase's Amazon integration. Also read: Josh Garza Speaks On PayBase Launch...
The much-anticipated launch of PayBase is happening on 12/30/14. This launch follows the launch of PayCoin by GAWMiners. PayCoin launched with a roar drawing in excess of 40 to 50+ peta hash of SHA-256 mining power, the same type used in Bitcoin. Now moved into the POS (Proof of Stake) phase of maintaining the network the next step in its platform PayBase is going live. PayBase is a platform for...
GAWMiners CEO Josh Garza made a large splash with the Paycoin ICO announcement on Nov 4 where he introduced their first basic version of the White Paper and some details of what would be happening and a roadmap of when. A lot of the feedback was positive since there were 25k new signups for the Hashlet Cloud Mining service. There were also questions raised and many detractors came out, tearing...