ICO News: New Zealand ICO May Mislead Investors
One of the most reassuring features of an upcoming ICO is a proven history of operations, whether it’s revenue, subscribers/users or a product that has hit the market, to name a few. That’s why when a startup uses these very traits to scam investors, it stings all the more. The 19-year old founder behind the Sell My Good ICO, which is driven by the SMG cash coin, had targeted USD 220 million for his token sale, which is unfolding now, and may have stretched the truth to get him to there.
According to reports, Ashutoush Sharma started his e-commerce company over the summer. The Sell My Good toke sale began in recent days and Sharma has already raised millions of dollars, reports indicate. Where he went wrong was in allegedly overstating the website’s traffic by “a factor of 10,000,” NZ Herald reports. While he denies fabricating these results, regulators are warning investors not to take any chances. And with so many upcoming ICOs to choose from, why should they?
“We recommend New Zealand investors do not subscribe to this offer,” according to a spokesperson at the Financial Markets Authority, which has jurisdiction over this deal.
Upcoming ICO May Make Promises It Can’t Keep
It’s hard to deny that the Sell My Good ICO made some impressive promises, not the least of which included the assurance of 5 million users which they planned to double by year-end, thousands of new listings every day for the Sell My good e-commerce site and a total of AUD 80 million in sales so far. The company also claims that its global traffic will catapult the business to one of the leading 1,000 sites for traffic by Q1 2018. For any business to make those claims might seem ambitious but even more for a startup with less than a year of history going up against the likes of Amazon.
We tried visiting the website www.sellmygood.com, but it is no longer available. The alleged fraud is the kind of deal that blockchain veterans have been warning about. And it is a stark reminder that if an upcoming ICO sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
