OneCoin follow-up

OneCoin 2015 – 2018.

Crumbling remains of the pyramid

A successful scam usually has cult like members who continue believing in the scam even at the point when the whole pyramid is collapsing around them. This is also where we are at with OneCoin.

There are still members who are clinging to the hope of OneCoin going public and thus the imaginary value of the coin would magically turn into reality. One fact that they comfortable seem to forget is that it isn't relevant whether there are hundreds of thousands or 3,5 million members believing in the lie. There isn't going to be masses of even more gullible people to bail them out from their misery.

The members of OneCoin are supposedly holding about 60 billion onecoins, most of them very eager to sell all of their possessions as soon as possible. According to the dictated value of the coin, which is a bit above 20 euros at the moment, that's about 1200 billion euros. You have to be absolutely delusional to imagine people outside the cult buying these coins. And you only have to know the basics of economics to understand what would happen if the coin ever was successfully launched to open market.

Furthermore the latest news about OneCoin once again delaying the big day of going public seem to have agitated also some of the hardest believers to ask questions and demand answers.

Google Trends

In September 2016 OneCoin's popularity on Google was peaking and the company proudly claimed to have reached 2.5 million members. Currently the counter of the website claims that OneCoin has almost 3.5 million members. However this increase of 1 million members doesn't reflect at all on Google Trends. Search term "onecoin" has the popularity of about 20 % compared to the highest mark in September 2016.

Between those red vertical lines there has been an increase of 1 million members. Yet OneCoin's popularity on Google has gone down remarkably from the peak in September 2016. 

Google Trends can be a great tool for comparing popularities of different search terms. For instance OneCoin has been marketed as the biggest cryptocurrency in the world, also as "the Bitcoin killer" in addition to other nonsensical claims. On Google Trends we see a totally different story. Compared to other known cryptocurrencies OneCoin seems to be practically unknown to the general public. Adding Bitcoin to the comparison shows OneCoin's popularity as a flat line.

Comparing search term "onecoin" to "bitcoin" on Google Trends.

The stats shown by Google Trend are no surprise to me. Usually when OneCoin comes up in a conversation I have to explain what it is. Recently I talked to a fried who lives in an area that is most likely the worst OneCoin infected area in Finland. He had never heard about OneCoin.

Alexa.com

OneCoin's DealShaker platform presents a counter that has had linear growth of merchants and logged-in-members throughout the existence of the site. Alexa.com shows a rather drastic decline in popularity of the site which indicates that the figures given by OneCoin aren't trustworthy.

Over 70.000 merchants but only about 15.000 shitty deals available. Total amount of users logged in is very far from the alleged 3.5 million members of OneCoin. Seems that vast majority of them aren't interested about DealShaker.

Alleged 3.5 million members but not much interest towards DealShitter.

The popularity of the site has been declining despite the continuously growing number of members.

The BMW auction

In June there was a big marketing event of DealShaker and the climax was an auction of a BMW car that was going to be hammered for 100 % onecoins.

A video clip of the auction shows GLG (Global Leader Group) members of OneCoin running the auction. GLG is supposed to be a group of OneCoin leaders that are the highest in the hierarchy what comes to the IMAs (Independent Marketing Associates) of OneCoin/OneLife. They are the ones that members can rely on as a source of real disinformation.

Immediately after the auction was over it was praised as a great success and as a proof that you can buy even a BMW sports car with onecoins. The auction starts with a modest bid of 1.000 onecoins, next bid was 2.000 onecoins and the third one 2.300 onecoins. According to the dictated value of onecoin the third bid was close to the actual retail price of the car, which is probably something between 40k-50k euros. However, the auction didn't stop there. The final bid for the car was staggering 3.6 million onecoins. According to the imaginary value of the coin that would be well above 70 million euros for a BMW worth about 40k euros. Or to be more precise the value of onecoin in this transaction would be about 0.011 euro.

It's funny how the GLG members got more and more excited as the imaginary value of the coin was bombarded down by every bid, starting from the very beginning of the auction.

GLG member Mihail Petrovic thinks that the auction was fantastic.

Of course the auction got ridiculed online because it truly showed that not even the top leaders of OneCoin valued the coin even close to the imaginary value of the coin. However, the company was swift to interfere and as a result the auction was voided. Apparently OneCoin's members can't even use their coins as they will. Everything is controlled by the scampany.

Top leaders  and management abandoned the ship

The whole leadership of the company is gone and the majority of the top earners of the scam have moved on, many of them to other scams. Many of the loudest supporters and believers of OneCoin have gone quiet. Konstantin Ignatov stepped in to replace his sister who fled from the EU region and was never to be heard again.


Sebastian Greenwood, Global Master Distributor

Sebastian Greenwood left OneCoin in December 2017 after being in OneCoin since the beginning. His name popped up in China in May 2018 after Chinese authorities investigating OneCoin scam had frozen a bank account of Greenwood's holding 7.1 million dollars.

Bangkok 2016, Sebastian Greenwood lying about the birthday cake of OneCoin:
"The biggest cake ever" ... "And this cake is two meters by two meters in diameter."

Frank Ricketts

Frank Ricketts, the captain of the shipwreck.

Frank Ricketts was appointed as the "captain" of the ship(-wreck) as Greenwood was making his way to exit. Awkwardly this fresh captain left without telling about it to his drowning passengers. The company itself didn't inform about the departure of Ricketts. Instead the news were milked from a member of the Global Leaders Group (GLG).


Pablo Munoz, CEO of OneLife

We still don't know why Pablo Munoz disappeared from the position of OneLife CEO. The company was loud to introduce him but buried him very quietly. – Oh, they didn't bury him literally. As far as I know Munoz is still alive. I don't think he misses his short reign though.

The LinkedIn profile of Munoz doesn't mention a thing about his position in OneLife.


Pierre "Pitt" Arens, CEO of OneCoin

Pierre Arens was introduced as the new CEO of OneCoin in May 2017.

Pierre "Pitt" Arens quitted as the CEO of OneCoin holding the position only about 5 months. His LinkedIn profile still doesn't mention a thing about being the CEO of "the biggest cryptocurrency of the world". According to Arens the reason for his departure was: "a lack of leeway as a leader". – Oh, i guess it had nothing to do with the company being a scam then.


Ruja Ignatova, the visionary, the founder, the queen of the crypt

The beloved leader of the ponzi disappeared in October 2017 and was never heard again. When OneCoin's offices were raided in January 2018 it became obvious that she had fled the EU region.

After Ruja Ignatova left the scam her brother Konstantin Ignatov took over as the head of the ponzi. It remains to be seen how long that lasts.

Konstantin plays the role of the head of the company but behind the curtains the real manager of One Network Services is certain Christian Manolov. However Manolov is apparently just a puppet put in charge of a strange circle of companies owning each other. Read this article by Bulgarian Capital to know more about the companies behind OneCoin.


Edward Ludbrook

I think there's one man behind OneCoin who has not given the praise that he deserves. I mean, he is after all the man who by his own words was behind the idea of creating the new blockchain for OneCoin in October 2016.

Edward Ludbrook was once "The Chief Leadership Officer" and "the Asian Ambassador" of the scam. To bring credibility to OneCoin and to himself Ludbrook was also keen on boasting how he had advised the British government on the pyramid law legislation in the 90's. I don't know if that's true, but while he was a loyal lackey of OneCoin this expert of pyramid legislation was in fact urging people to disregard any warnings about OneCoin.

After leaving the company Lubrook has tried to distance himself from the scam. He has removed all posts from his Facebook page regarding OneCoin. The only one I managed to find was this:

– Well he obviously has also focused on deleting material that connects him to OneCoin/OneLife.

His LinkedIn profile page is nowadays missing the 11 months he spent consulting the ponzi-pyramid scam. Luckily someone took a screencap before the reference was removed. According to Ludbrook he was "misled by the CEO of OneLife" (Ruja Ignatova) and he also addresses "deep concerns over the company." – I guess those concerns were not deep enough to give a shit about the victims of the ponzi.

Ludbrook: "I was misled by the CEO and have deep concerns over the company."

Although he was not the Consultant of OneLife after September 2016 he did continue as Asian Ambassador of OneLife for an unknown period.

Ludbrook as "Asian Ambassador" of OneLife in October 2016.

After getting out of the relationship with OneCoin Ludbrook has written a piece on Medium platform titled "How to spot a crypto-scam?" He writes:

"90% of true scams are easy to spot. And frankly most people join these knowing that they look weak and they just hope they can make a quick profit.
Its the 10% that are hard to spot. I was recruited into a crypto-business that had everything right except…. So anyone can be caught. It happens to the best of us."
– It happens to the best of us? – No, it doesn't happen to the best of us. The true nature of OneCoin was easy to spot since the day one. That's why there were so many people warning about the scam from the early on. There has also been numerous warnings from banks, governments and police.

By the way, an earlier edition of the article by Ludbrook was a bit more revealing:

Now who might this "con-woman" be?

Ed Ludbrook: 

"I don't think stupid people should be allowed to be in OneCoin."

In this video clip Ed Ludbrook explains that the members don't have to understand how blockchain works. Like he says: "I just trust Ruja":

Here's Ed Ludbrook discouraging people from searching information about OneCoin and urging to disregard any warnings:

So Mr Ludbrook, you claim you were somehow misled by Ruja Ignatova. How many people did you mislead?