28.03.2024

Crypto Marketplace Purse.io to Dissolve Operations After 6 Years

The cryptocurrency marketplace Purse.io is shutting down soon after launching the platform in 2014. The company allowed people to leverage cryptocurrencies like BTC and BCH in order to purchase a myriad of products on Amazon. Purse.io customers often saved customers up to 20% or more by using the platform.

On April 16, the crypto firm Purse.io announced the company is planning to dissolve after six years of operation. The marketplace provided incentives for people who wanted the lowest price points by leveraging cryptocurrency solutions. New signups on Purse have been disabled and the company’s doors will officially close in June.

The San Francisco-based company was a very popular marketplace among bitcoiners and it was founded by Andrew Lee, Christopher Jeffrey, Kent Liu, and Steven Bower. On Thursday, Purse.io customer representative Eduardo Gómez told the public the firm would be dissolving soon.

“We’ve made the very difficult decision to dissolve the company”, Gómez wrote. “We’re grateful for the opportunity afforded by our supporters to build products and infrastructure for the cryptocurrency community.” Gómez continued:

To everyone who used our products, told their friends, or helped us in any way, thank you.

Crypto Marketplace Purse.io to Dissolve the Business After 6 Years

Open-Source Projects Like Bcoin – Ipayyou.io Welcomes Purse Customers

The team said that as of April 16, 2020, all new signups would be disabled and as of April 23, the “Shop” and “Earn” functionality will be disabled. “Open orders that have not been matched will be canceled, and Purse.io will cease operations on June 26, 2020”, Gómez stressed. Further, Purse.io developers also worked on open-source cryptocurrency projects like HSD and Bcoin. In fact, the Bcoin block #457010 on the BTC chain was the first block ever mined by a client that was not written in Satoshi Nakamoto’s C++ framework. Gómez added:

We’re also thankful to all the developers and companies who continue to support open-source projects including Bcoin and HSD. Thank you for helping us make crypto useful.

Crypto Marketplace Purse.io to Dissolve the Business After 6 Years

The cryptocurrency community on social media and forums were saddened by the news, as Purse.io was an early and long-lasting venture. For people looking for an alternative platform to Purse.io, the company ipayyou.io offers a similar marketplace. Ipayyou.io supports BTC and BCH and the company’s Twitter account tweeted that the company “welcomes all Purse customers, shoppers, and earners.”

Crypto Ponzi OneCoin May Have Used Flood of Fake Reviews to Boost Ailing Image

The OneCoin cryptocurrency project – accused by authorities of being a Ponzi scheme – may have attempted to boost its fortunes by using «inauthentic» accounts to place favorable reviews on TrustPilot and Quora, according to new research.The Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), an entity under U.S. think-tank the AtlanticCouncil, said in a report on its blog Wednesday that OneCoin «astroturfing campaign» came around the same time that its founder, Ruja Ignatova, disappeared following a number of legal cases against her and other members of the project in 2019.

In March of last year, U.S. prosecutors in New York arrested a man they said was a “top leader” of OneCoin, saying the project stole “billions” from investors through its alleged pyramid scheme. At the same time as Konstantin Ignatov was apprehended, Ignatova was also charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.

Mark Scott, the lawyer behind the scheme was also found guilty of laundering $400 million for OneCoin in New York in November. At around the same time, a number of nations announced they were taking action to protect investors against the project, which used pyramid selling scheme tactics to lure new investors.

DFRLab’s researchers found that, in October of last year, OneCoin received a slew of five-star reviews on consumer ratings site TrustPilot.

«Of the 579 reviews for OneCoin on the site, 90 percent were positive. Of the five star ratings, about 400 were published within the span of a single month,» the post states.

The researchers say that a number of one-star reviews were «buried» by the flood of positive reviews.

While the lab’s team couldn’t tell if the reviews came from automated or «inauthentic» accounts due to the limits of the TrustPilot user interface, the spike in five-star rating «indicated an abnormal influx of favorable reviews just as OneCoin’s public relations and legal woes mounted.»

An analysis of reviewers on question-answering site Quora, however, found profiles posting positively about OneCoin that showed «signs of inauthentic behavior.» These included an absence of profile pictures and bios, erratic posting times, and «an exclusive interest in OneCoin-related discussions.»

A large number of profiles purported to be subject-matter experts on cryptocurrency, according to the report, but restricted answers to the «viability or value» of OneCoin. DFRLab said it was not able to confirm the identities of the individuals, with social media searches showing «no similar or matching results.»

«While there was no direct evidence tying these inauthentic profiles and reviews to OneCoin employees or evidence of automated activity on either platform, the profiles and favorable reviews nonetheless served to boost trust for the OneCoin brand as it faced a multibillion-dollar scandal,» the report concludes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *