I was watching YouTube a couple of days ago when an ad video promoting BunnyToken emerged before the actual video started. The content of the ad video was so scammy that I had to dig out more information about the scheme. I was also baffled if this actually was a scam advertising itself boldly on YouTube.
What is Bunny Token
Bunny Token is marketing itself as the mainstream payment system of the future for adult entertainment industry, providing anonymous and low cost transactions. Considering the somewhat direct approach to the subject, they strangely seem to have forgotten to put the word "adult" before "entertainment industry" on their website.
Bunny Token is based on Ethereum blockchain technology. The Initial Sale of Bunny Tokens launched on the 13th of March, 2018. The sale will continue until the 25th of May, 2018. There is going to be 1 billion tokens issued.
According to bunnytoken.com the company behind Bunny Token is Bunny Software Ltd. which is registered in Seychelles. The website domain has been registered 6 February 2018 by a third party to hide the identity of the actual company/person. The domain has been set to expire already on 6 February 2019 so I guess the registrant doesn't really believe in the business model yet.
The ad
Quoting the ad:
"The BunnyToken is the cryptocurrency, which will be used by the 103 billion dollar and consistently expanding industry."
– Now, I'm not denying the continuously growing number of wankers, but making such promises of BunnyToken being used by the whole industry is pretty far fetched – especially when prohibited to use in the U.S.A, the mecca of porn.
– Now, I'm not denying the continuously growing number of wankers, but making such promises of BunnyToken being used by the whole industry is pretty far fetched – especially when prohibited to use in the U.S.A, the mecca of porn.
BunnyToken's terms and conditions:
Bunny Tokens will not be available for sale to the citizens or residents of the USA, People’s Republic of China, Republic of Korea, Singapore or any other country where where transactions in respect of, or with use of, digital tokens fall under the restrictive regulations or require from company to be registered or licensed with any applicable governmental authorities.
The ad continues:
"The industry is one of the biggest in the world and even a small percentage of its market capital will boost the value of Bunny and lead it to the top."
At first glance everything seems believable. There's a link to a white paper, nice charts, roadmap and even some people from porn industry introduced as "The BunnyToken Advisors". But a closer look at the site reveals some alarming details.
There's "Expert Reviews" section with a showcase of logos of many cryptocurrency related websites. However, for instance the logos of Cointelegraph and Merkle have been linked to a press release published by Bunny Token. I don't think you can label a press release as an expert review.
The white paper of Bunny Token is 42 pages long. I was interested to see if it revealed any porn websites already partnered with Bunny Token, because without partners this porn coin would be utterly pointless. And there it was, a list of porn sites already partnered!
At least some of those webpages were registered by a registrant based in the U.S., which is strange considering that Bunny Token isn't going to be available in the U.S. Goldnude.com didn't even seem to be operational anymore because there wasn't any means of payment available for joining the site.
However, the strangest and the most alarming part is the staff. "Bunny Software has brought together a team of experts with backgrounds in the entertainment industry business, payment systems and blockchain specialist who will make BunnyToken the mainstream digital currency for the entertainment industry." And yes, there is an impressive looking gallery of professionals devoted to Bunny Token's cause. But taking a more thorough look at them reveals that they don't seem to exist outside Bunny Token's website.
It seems evident that if not all then at least majority of them are not real persons. I tried to find several of them on LinkedIn without success. However, I did manage to find Facebook profile pages of almost everyone of the staff – 17 out of those 21 to be precise. Again, everything seemed to be alright at first, but then I noticed some alarming similarities among each and everyone of them had on their Facebook page.
Everyone of the people I found on Facebook had only one picture of him/her. The posts they have made are pretty nonsensical; stock photos, photos of shoes, a black dude, a weapon, a puppy or a kitten etc. They seem to post on their Facebook walls very seldom. Remarkably all these people have been posting with identical date stamps – like someone was just making up stuff for a certain date for several profiles. They all have latest posts dated 9, 8 or 7 of March. Before that they all just happened to have longer period of not posting a thing. On February 23–24 they were all active and posted something. Coincidental? – No. Much fake? – Yes.
Here's a list and links of all those Facebook profiles I managed to find:
Alexander Maslov
Vasilisa Yakubo
Andrei Kazarin
Wiebe Van Veen
Ruben Klassen
Ove Skovgaard
Spas Danilov
Nikita Polyakov
Filip Bager
Dori Rubinshteyn
Petter Berg
Anika Dresdner
Garry Stanford
Kristine Lang
Kalla Baars
Monika Sawyer
Maghan Choi
Tamera Brooks
– Although it's obvious without saying, I'd like to point out that the people in any of the pictures of those profiles have likely nothing to do with the scam – except Maslov, Yakubo and Kazarin who all have featured in Bunny's marketing vids. However, I don't think they are using their real names while scamming.
So all in all I think there are enough red flags to conclude that Bunny Token shouldn't be trusted. It's a scam, and yes, it's advertised on YouTube.
"The industry is one of the biggest in the world and even a small percentage of its market capital will boost the value of Bunny and lead it to the top."
– Yeah, sure.
"Starting from the first day of pre-initial token sale, the price of the token will increase 1 percent every single day. This increase will continue until the last day of the initial token sale."
– Well, there's a difference between price and value. You can set whatever price you like, but it isn't necessarily the value.
"Only one billion tokens will be issued. Any unsold tokens will be burned. This will instantly increase the value of remaining tokens."
– Erm, if you manage to sell only one token, how come burning 99.999.999 tokens increase the value of the remaining one?
"Referral program"
– Yes, there's also referral program to help to spread the disease.
Screenshot from the ad video.
"Starting from the first day of pre-initial token sale, the price of the token will increase 1 percent every single day. This increase will continue until the last day of the initial token sale."
– Well, there's a difference between price and value. You can set whatever price you like, but it isn't necessarily the value.
"Only one billion tokens will be issued. Any unsold tokens will be burned. This will instantly increase the value of remaining tokens."
– Erm, if you manage to sell only one token, how come burning 99.999.999 tokens increase the value of the remaining one?
"Referral program"
– Yes, there's also referral program to help to spread the disease.
The website and the red flags
At first glance everything seems believable. There's a link to a white paper, nice charts, roadmap and even some people from porn industry introduced as "The BunnyToken Advisors". But a closer look at the site reveals some alarming details.
There's "Expert Reviews" section with a showcase of logos of many cryptocurrency related websites. However, for instance the logos of Cointelegraph and Merkle have been linked to a press release published by Bunny Token. I don't think you can label a press release as an expert review.
The white paper of Bunny Token is 42 pages long. I was interested to see if it revealed any porn websites already partnered with Bunny Token, because without partners this porn coin would be utterly pointless. And there it was, a list of porn sites already partnered!
At least some of those webpages were registered by a registrant based in the U.S., which is strange considering that Bunny Token isn't going to be available in the U.S. Goldnude.com didn't even seem to be operational anymore because there wasn't any means of payment available for joining the site.
However, the strangest and the most alarming part is the staff. "Bunny Software has brought together a team of experts with backgrounds in the entertainment industry business, payment systems and blockchain specialist who will make BunnyToken the mainstream digital currency for the entertainment industry." And yes, there is an impressive looking gallery of professionals devoted to Bunny Token's cause. But taking a more thorough look at them reveals that they don't seem to exist outside Bunny Token's website.
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| Click to enlarge. |
It seems evident that if not all then at least majority of them are not real persons. I tried to find several of them on LinkedIn without success. However, I did manage to find Facebook profile pages of almost everyone of the staff – 17 out of those 21 to be precise. Again, everything seemed to be alright at first, but then I noticed some alarming similarities among each and everyone of them had on their Facebook page.
Everyone of the people I found on Facebook had only one picture of him/her. The posts they have made are pretty nonsensical; stock photos, photos of shoes, a black dude, a weapon, a puppy or a kitten etc. They seem to post on their Facebook walls very seldom. Remarkably all these people have been posting with identical date stamps – like someone was just making up stuff for a certain date for several profiles. They all have latest posts dated 9, 8 or 7 of March. Before that they all just happened to have longer period of not posting a thing. On February 23–24 they were all active and posted something. Coincidental? – No. Much fake? – Yes.
Here's a list and links of all those Facebook profiles I managed to find:
Alexander Maslov
Vasilisa Yakubo
Andrei Kazarin
Wiebe Van Veen
Ruben Klassen
Ove Skovgaard
Spas Danilov
Nikita Polyakov
Filip Bager
Dori Rubinshteyn
Petter Berg
Anika Dresdner
Garry Stanford
Kristine Lang
Kalla Baars
Monika Sawyer
Maghan Choi
Tamera Brooks
– Although it's obvious without saying, I'd like to point out that the people in any of the pictures of those profiles have likely nothing to do with the scam – except Maslov, Yakubo and Kazarin who all have featured in Bunny's marketing vids. However, I don't think they are using their real names while scamming.
So all in all I think there are enough red flags to conclude that Bunny Token shouldn't be trusted. It's a scam, and yes, it's advertised on YouTube.
Fantastic review with good investigative work. Although I must say when one is used to doing reviews you learn the tricks of the scam trade. Everything about bunnytoken has been done before, whether in the past as forex trading, binary options, penny stocks, etc by scammers. Keep up the good work
ReplyDeleteThanks for your compliment!
DeleteThere are of course thousands of ongoing scams all the time, and most of them follow the handbook of scammers. However, I have been targeting the ones that intrigue me the most.
Especially multi-level marketing based scams have certain characteristics that really make them interesting what comes to the psychological aspect of things and human/inhuman behaviour.
Now that the world has gone crazy with cryptocurrencies it isn't surprising that we have maybe thousands of crypto-related scams as well.
I wouldn't have even noticed Bunny Token if it didn't advertise itself on YouTube. After investigating it, I must say the scammers have really put an exceptional effort on this – publishing dozens of self-written reviews, all those fake Facebook profiles, acquiring people from porn industry to support the cause etc.
Hi Ari, not sure if you still check this out since it's from 2018 but clearly I was one of the mislead who actually bought bunny token. I hadn't checked on for years and came across my private 12 key paperwork to be used on metamask. I checked on it today and there was zero eth in the account. I am not certain if it loaded or I have to load it (very complex compared to what I decided to stick with ie: coinbase for crypto) separately etc. but I even checked in on my bunny token account on their site. Logged in and I can see all my purchases and that I transfered it to another account (if I recall something on the account stated to transfer it to another account for safer keeping etc) of which I did. Obviously all the transactions can be found on blockchain lookup etc. but I do not have the experience or know how in whether or not it could be investigated to find out where my money went and/or who the account owner is that I am guessing I sent it to.
DeleteI've obviously moved on with my crypto, making better purchases etc. using coinbase and I am not expecting for there to be a way to get my money back from this bunnytoken scam but if there is a way to see who/where my money went I would be interested in tracking it down!
Oddly enough, Seychelles is actually my ancestral roots on one side of my family. LOL
J
Thanks for sharing your experience with Bunny token scam.
DeleteLooks like these scammers got away with the money they stole. I tried to find out more about the people behind the scam after some time had passed from Bunny scam collapsing but the people involved weren't eager to share any names. They even argued against me after I called Bunny a scam.
Youtube sucks by spreading such scam ads. Thank you for your investigation.
ReplyDeleteThanks, After bumping into that ad I have seen it several times while watching YouTube. I actually tried to find a way to flag or write a report about the ad on YouTube but there wasn't any option available.
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the business scam from pathumanun and khunkitti in Thailand. This one is international though.
ReplyDeleteBITCONECT!!!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat piece of investigative journalism Ari. I also tried to report this ad when It first popped up. When I couldn't find a way to do so, I found and flagged the "bunnytoken" channel for scam/spam. The process involved in flagging a channel is a bit convoluted, but it does allow you to include a comment in order to clarify your position. Anyway, keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteThank you Psilo.
DeleteI flagged the ad video as a scam too following your example. By the way, there's over 2 million views already.
BunnyToken is practically promising profits to investors. I'm pretty sure that this isn't exactly legal in most of the countries this ad reaches.
Also fundraising via ads is forbidden according to the terms and conditions of YouTube: "Only charitable organizations recognized by the government can ask for money. Political fundraising is generally permitted."
Like the Gamekit ads you see on YouTube. Dig a little deeper and you find out what a scam they are. It's baffling that Google doesn't background check these advertisers before accepting them. It's the kind of thing I'd expect to see on some leech website
ReplyDeleteI just managed to find some more Facebook profiles of BunnyToken staff that I couldn't find on my first try. All in all I have now found 17 out of those 21 and they all appear to be fake profiles.
ReplyDeleteI updated the blog post with a list of links to all those fake Facebook profiles.
ReplyDeleteLet me guess: the investors buy their tokens using bitcoins, making sure the tracing of money is even more difficult?
ReplyDeleteThey should’ve named this “wankcoin”.
Entertaining and good investigative research. Especially in digging their FakeBook profiles :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tim.
DeleteThose Facebook profiles haven't had posts lately, but 21 hours ago the person controlling the lives of Monica Sawyer and Choi Maghan was giving BunnyToken 5 star ratings on its Facebook page.
most of the pages are now deleted
ReplyDeleteI noticed that too and already made a new post about Bunny's staff cuts. I also contacted Bunny Advisor Alex Eikster and asked him some questions about this scheme.
ReplyDeleteAdded the Facebook profile page of Alexander Maslov. It seems as fake as every other of them.
ReplyDeleteThere are some differences though. Maslov has an impressive list of friends on Facebook. I believe one of his closest friends is this fake lawyer:
Deletehttps://www.facebook.com/ccbbyycc?fref=pb&hc_location=friends_tab
The profile picture of the "lawyer" has been copied from here and mirrored:
http://vo.org.ru/image/7469-8.html
Well, seems that this "Alexander Maslov" is a fan of my blog. He has systematically removed all the Facebook profiles that I have revealed here as fake accounts.
DeleteWow late read ya info, I've bought and now token bunny yan I get already I move to my wallet.
ReplyDeleteYour other comment was removed because of the link it included.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, here's your question:
"What about pecunio tokens do you think is this also your scam?"
– Based on a quick view on this scheme, I wouldn't trust it. They are using false marketing for promoting, which isn't the way for any legitimate and honest company to operate.
For instance, they claim that "NASDAQ TV, the most important financial channel in the U.S., covered PECUNIO in their program" and "PECUNIO INVITED TO NASDAQ FOR AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW". First of all, I don't manage to find "Nasdaq TV" anywhere. Secondly, the video is actually released by LilaMax Media, and I would suspect that it was paid commercial bit for Pecunio.
Good work, I should read this before doing my own research. :)
ReplyDeleteTrue scam . They will be rich soon after stealing all of the ico money . I hope the authorities will be able to trace the stolen ether on their address and somehow ban transactions at exchanges
ReplyDeleteIt has been listed on the yobit exchange, so guess it's not a scam. https://yobit.net/en/trade/BUNNY/BTC
ReplyDeleteI guess Bitconnect wasn't a scam then either? Getting listed on an exchange isn't a proof of legitimacy of a business. Bunny Token has released enough bullshit and lies to reveal the true nature of its business.
DeleteI'm interested what has happened here. Is bunny token out there or not. Who has lost out?
ReplyDeleteScam,you must sell your Bunny on Yobit again,do not waste your money.
ReplyDeleteTheir whitepaper is a HUGE red flag! The way it mentions other companies, that aren't currently affiliated with BunnyToken, is really weird. Also, including a bunch of graphic photos doesn't resemble other - more professional - whitepapers. Not to mention its pretty bold assumptions! Growth upon endless economic growth :) Yeah right.
ReplyDeleteThis whitepaper only focuses on the marketing aspect of the token, while there's hardly any mentions of the underlying technology. That little thing which is actually generating the income. Kinda predictable considering the team hasn't actually developed anything, they're simply using the available ethereum blockchain as is.
Yep, instead being convincing the white paper only contains further proof about Bunny Token being a scam. It's just baffling how there still seems to be people defending this shit despite all the evidence.
DeleteSo where street the bunny tokens ?
ReplyDeleteI don't understand what do you mean but I guess street is the best place for Bunny Tokens.
DeleteThis for sure is a scam. But the wider point is that actually they are right - adult sites do have an inbuilt problem insomuch as that some card processors will charge huge amounts because many users make false chargebacks on their credit cards claiming 'it wasn't me'. It's a very real problem it makes porn and adult sites more expensive and less profitable - nobody really wins - except the leeches that bag the free porn and get their money back. I think there has got to be a better way to deal with this, that we separate the payment from the porn. But when this 'interrupts' the moment, you may lose a sale if you have to go away and set up a wallet and then top it up - bleurgh.
ReplyDeletePathumanun and Khunkitti are involved in this scam,
ReplyDeleteNever heard about them, but the scam itself appears to have Russian origins. On the other hand it's impossible to know the real people behind the scheme because there's is no trustworthy information about them.
DeleteWasn,t this Khunkitti guy involved here?
ReplyDeleteWhat actions can be taken against these people to recover the ICO money invested?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately these scams operate in such way that usually there isn't much victims can do.
DeleteI have tried to ask who was behind this scam from the known people who were publicly promoting BunnyToken but they don't care to share their information with me. I doubt that they will be much kinder to the victims.
You can report the scam to police but unless they can interrogate the people involved in the scam I don't think police can do much about this either.
At least Alex Eikster knew who were running the scam:
Delete"I tried asking one of the advisors of the ICO, Alex Eikster, whether he knew who were behind this project. Eikster admitted knowing the people but refused to give any names."
http://kusetukset.blogspot.com/2019/05/bunnytoken-scam-follow-up.html