A random post.
A lot of things on my mind.
The Pi Anomaly
All red but one!
In the language of one Redditor:
Pi against the world!
That was yesterday, and every crypto enthusiast is aware of it.
The "scam" network is the only coin that ends in green. Not only that, from 3,151 on coinmarketcap.com and rankless on Coingecko, it was ranked the 13th among top cryptocurrencies in terms of market cap on coinranking.com.
What an anomaly!
Now Pi keeps climbing!
It is good that I bought it back at $1.36.
I saw someone buying 1,241 at $0.70. If he was able to sell at $2.12, that 101,972.00 PHP profit is rare to see in the Philippine stock market.
However, I observed that riding the popularity of the Pi Network, mobile mining apps became popular too.
The PEN Token
One example is cPen. After reading its whitepaper, I came up with a review. I don't like it due to the following reasons:
It appears like a Pi clone in so many ways.
The same as Lumira in its RWA integration.
cPen is a layer 2 blockchain built on BSC, which is notorious for rug pulls.
Gas fee
Only two days left before the conclusion of the token mining.
The whitepaper appears to be written by a non-professional. It looks haphazard.
In short, no unique selling proposition (USP). The token will struggle to compete with senior crypto projects that share a similar niche.
I might be wrong. I thanked the one who shared it with me, but I said no.
Quantvine
This one looks attractive, particularly for those seeking quick money.
The story of one early adopter who gained 1.2 million PHP is stuck in the minds of many. I don't know when he started and how much he invested. I am not interested, but that's the story they share to attract attention.
This mobile app is associated with a certain Charles Miller, considered an outstanding leader in financial technology. The company is claimed to be based in San Francisco, California, and was founded in 2021.
Observe some of the features in their mobile app and see if you can discern any red flags.
Trading Pairs
The first page that caught my attention was the trading pairs. This one gives a legitimate outlook. The list reflects what's happening in real-time.
Investment Categories
Let us go to the financial wallet. This gets interesting. There are 8 classes of investments depending on the quota, daily rate, and number of days.
| Type of Investment | Quota | Daily Rate | Required Number of Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quick Gain | 200 - 1,000 | 1.50% | 7 |
| Steady Return | 500 - 3,000 | 1.30% | 30 |
| Smart Choice | 500 - 6,000 | 1.15% | 60 |
| Secure Growth | 500 - 10,000 | 1.10% | 120 |
| Balance Yield | 1,000 - 20,000 | 1% | 180 |
| Prime Select | 1,500 - 30,000 | 0.75% | 270 |
| Annual Advantage | 2,000 - 50,000 | 0.60% | 360 |
| Long Term Success | 3,000 - 100,000 | 0.40% | 720 |
Let us evaluate the above investment scheme. Let us take the lowest investment as an example. In Quick Gain, if you invest $1,000.00, you will earn a total of 10.5% interest within a week. That would mean that after 7 days, your $1,000.00 will grow to $1,105.00. Not bad. It seems not so big. However, if you stick with this investment and take the interest every week, it will only take you approximately 9.5 weeks to gain that maximum quota under the Quick Gain plan. That's around two months and a half. True to its name. The profit is really quick. In just less than a year (38 weeks or more or less 10 months), your $1,000.00 will gain a 400% appreciation. Perhaps my computation is faulty. Can someone good in numbers please correct me?
If you don't see a red flag here, I don't know what people are thinking when they invest in this kind of scheme. If the 20% APR of HBD is considered a Ponzi scheme by some, how about a 400% APR in less than a year? Where can you find such a lucrative offer?
Quantitative Trading
Now for the next page—the quantitative trading page!
This, to me, is an obvious red flag. Imagine flashing those incomes every second. What would people think after seeing those? Wow! This mobile app is great! The trading bot distributes sure income to members in different parts of the world.
You also see the names of those crypto exchanges. Again, those names give a feeling of legitimacy to this mobile app. Imagine doing nothing but simply investing a certain amount, and then presto! You have a cash machine!
If this is true, why share it with the world? Why not just keep such a success as a trade secret? If it is true and everybody knows it, where does the income come from? And besides, how about the losses? Is it not true that crypto trading does not always end in gain, and for many, loss is far more common?
Agent Cooperation
The last page is about the commission reward mechanism for those who will join the team program. This commission mechanism has three levels:
| Level | Members | Percentage Commission | Commission/ $100 Daily Individual Income | Commission per Level from All Members |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | 21% | $21 | $210 |
| 2 | 100 | 7% | $7 | $700 |
| 3 | 1,000 | 3% | $3 | $3,000 |
| Total Income | - | - | - | $3,910 |
The above commission reward mechanism is very "generous." Imagine if you share Quantvine with a friend and he earns $100 daily; the company will reward you with $21. And if that friend shares the program with his friend, he will be part of your level 2, and you will earn $7 if he earns $100 daily. And then if that friend of your friend shares Quantvine with his friend, he will be in your level 3, and you will earn $3 if he earns $100 daily.
The example given in the mobile app is that level 1 has 10 members, level 2 has 100, and level 3 has 1,000. If you multiply the percentage commission by the total number of members per level, your total income will be $3,910.
Seeing those ideal numbers, it is hard for me to understand how people fall for this kind of scheme. I have been sharing Hive with them, and they're not interested. And then someone with this "high-yield" investment shares it with them; everybody listens.
They're money; they're responsibility. I refuse to join the online meeting. Since I cannot stop them from joining, the best I can do is warn them. I told them the mobile app is not based on any blockchain; it can disappear anytime. I also warned them with a popular saying:
If it's too good to be true then it probably isn't.
LUMIRA
I don't want to conclude with a negative note. The last mobile mining app I want to review is Lumira. Compared to the first two, this one is different in at least two ways: stablecoin and RWA.
As we know on Hive, both stablecoins and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA) are gaining mainstream attention. I think Lumira wants to capitalize on these two big trends in financial technology.
LUMIRA is a Swiss franc-based stablecoin. This reminds me of PHPC and PHPX, two stablecoins here in the Philippines backed by fiat, the Philippine peso.
The project is still young. They don't have a whitepaper yet. As I checked the Telegram group, it only had 29,600+ members. Unlike the many Tap-2-Earn games that went flop the past few months, which had hundreds of thousands or even millions of members, this group is still very small.
The crypto company is based in the UK and specializes in RWA tokenization. The total supply of the token is 250 million, and it claims to have 50,000+ pioneers.
Compared to Pi, which is not a stablecoin, it has a maximum supply of 100 billion and is now reported to have 70 million pioneers. If the report is true, that's a 10 million increase in less than a week since the mainnet launch.
I think that's all. At last, I unloaded the many things I had in mind.
If you are curious about Pi Network, you can download the app by following this link. You also need to have a Bitget account where you can transfer your Pi from your Pi wallet to a crypto exchange and exchange it for your currency.