With bitcoin stuck around $10,700 for a while, perhaps it makes sense to take a brief look at the cryptocurrency crime blotter this morning.
Mohammad Musharraf at Cointelegraph reports police arrested an Indian man who Musharraf names only as “Nishad,” who was charged by Indian law enforcement with hawking a cryptocurrency called Morris Coin and promising outsized returns on a pretty long time span – Nishad reportedly suggested investors would receive returns to the tune of 500% or more, over a period of 300 days: in other words, the better part of a year.
In supporting the criminal case, officials note that Morris Coin is not listed on any exchanges.
There’s also scant information available about the coin or its creator on the web.
The Morris Coin site itself is pretty cryptic. It’s neat how every sub-topic at the top of the landing page goes to a different part of the single page that links back to LongRich Technologies – but it’s probably not the best way to inspire confidence in a decentralized asset. The bottom line is that investments of this nature are always risky.
“The Morris Coin is a multifunctional, next-generation cryptocurrency form being developed on Blockchain, using cutting edge smart technology,” write the faceless Morris Coin people. “The Morris Coin will be the first stable digital currency exclusively designed and marketed towards an Ecommerce and Trading Industry to pay for product (sic) and services and freedom from dealing with traditional business.”
But then you see the grammatical errors and misspellings in the English text representation and you start to wonder if maybe this isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.
The Morris Coin thing probably won’t allay the fears of Indian officials calling for a ban on cryptocurrencies within the nation, for just these kinds of reasons. However, fraud can happen in nearly any environment. This just illustrates another one of those pitfalls that asset holders have to watch out for.
