The Skycoin fiasco is one of those stories that seems to have come out of a film script, but might be real for all we know.
At first, the community was suspicious of the cryptocurrency after it dropped in value by 70% in a very short period of time. Allegations in the coin’s blog of kidnapping and embezzlement inside of the team brought the coin’s value down significantly, sparking even more suspicion.
On Thursday, Reddit published what is believed to be the police report of the assault and robbery of both Synth—the cryptocurrency’s co-founder—and his girlfriend.
“[The source] said that her work partner assaulted her last night, forced her to hand over Bitcoin and she is requesting police to come to the scene. In July 2017, [Synth, his girlfriend,] and Sun Fei, Li Min and others started an Internet R&D database project and settled their earnings in Bitcoin. After that, Sun Fei, Li Min and others were not distributing the money appropriately. On June 12, 2018, Sun Fei, Li Ming, Yan Xiangdong and a few other individuals went to [Synth’s residence], threatening [Synth and his girlfriend] to hand over Bitcoin, assaulted them both and resulted in two injuries,” the police report read.
According to Skycoin, only 18.88 BTC and 6,466 SKY went missing. However, that doesn’t account for the impressive 70-percent drop in market capitalization that the coin experienced over the last week. Since the robbery, which took place on June 12th according to the police report, the coin’s market capitalization has dropped from around $137 million to about $56 million.
The rest of the loss could be explained by some panic sell-offs by investors or the embezzlement of funds by a number of other members of the team. A Telegram exchange in Skycoin’s group shows that Synth not only knew about the insider trading going on in his team but also that he supposedly acquired armed guards.
“Some of the coins they are dumping are coins that they bought at ten cents in an ICO. They have a mixture of stolen coins and coins they bought a long time ago… I am in a guarded compound with armed guards right now. I am not in China,” Synth said.
The 007-type scenario sounded outlandish, but the police report found by Reddit gives it at least a modicum of credibility.
This article appeared first on Cryptovest