What is Plus Token?

“Plus Token” was a cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme disguised as a high-yield investment program. Platform administrators closed down the operation in June of 2019. Fraudsters abandoned the scheme by withdrawing over $3 Billion dollars in Cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and EOS) and leaving the message “sorry we have run“. This has led to an international manhunt for the platform administrators and creators of Plus Token. Plus token has been blamed for causing Bitcoin prices to fall in 2019 as stolen funds were sold via Bitcoin OTCs.

PlusToken had a major following in Korea and China – especially among investors not familiar with cryptocurrencies. Plus token was a High Yield investment program that offered massive rewards on “investment” to unsuspecting victims in China and Korea. The scheme offered 9% to 18% monthly returns on investment – with larger investments getting more rewards. This type is similar to other High Yield investment programs like “Bitconnect” which collapsed in January of 2018.

Name:

Plus Token Damage:

$3,000,000,000 Date of Collapse:

2019 Type:

Ponzi Region:

China, Korea Name:

Bitconnect Damage:

$2,6000,000 Date of Collapse:

2018 Type:

Ponzi Region:

Global Name:

BitClub Damage:

$722,000,00 Date of Collapse:

2019 Type:

Ponzi Region:

Global Name:

OneCoin Damage:

400,000,000 Date of Collapse:

2018 Type:

Ponzi Region:

Bulgaria

How did the Plus Token Ponzi Scheme Work?

Plus Token is a classic Ponzi scheme it lures unsuspecting victims to invest with promises of high returns and low investments. Plus Token maintained an illusion of sustainable business by pretending the funds are used to develop cryptocurrency-related products such as the Plus Token Wallet and Exchange. However, returns are generated by dividing more recent investments to pay off older members. The illusion of a sustainable business is what classifies this as a Ponzi Scheme, as victims actually believe that they are investing in a business that generates high returns.

Plus Token also had a strong referral element, which gave huge bonuses to any member who referred friends and family into the scheme. Investors were divided into 4 “tiers”, according to how much they invested and how many other referrals they can make. This meant the more a member referred, the exponentially higher the return. Members started to refer their friends and family to invest in large sums of cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, and Litecoin.

How did it become so popular?

Plus Token relied heavily in conferences and meetups to promote the token. The following video is taken at a Plus token gathering.

Payments stopped 30th June 2019

Early signs of trouble started surfacing in June of 2019 as users started reporting delays in fund withdraws. Some took to complain on the Chinese social media site “Weibo” citing that they were unable to receive funds despite writing for 35 hours after submitting withdrawal requests (Source Blocktempo).

Initially, Plus token blamed on “higher miner fees” for the withdrawal delays. They claimed the sent transactions with 1 sat /byte, leading to long delays on the Bitcoin Blockchain. Plus token supporters avidly as their followers to “believe” in the system and disregard the “false information”.



This is just sad pic.twitter.com/hB3EkkEIKd — Boxmining (@boxmining) August 16, 2019 Ring Leaders tried to convince the community that Plus Token will come back.

Scammers: “Sorry We have run”

As funds began moving, one of the transactions carried the note “Sorry, we have run” as a comment to the transaction. This really needs no explanation – organisers of the scam have initiated their exit strategy and fled the country.

All 27 primary suspects and 82 core members of Plus Token scam have been arrested

Reports from Chinese news outlet CLS on 30th July 2020 reported that all 27 primary suspects thought to be responsible for the scam have been arrested. Another 82 core members of the scheme were also arrested in a huge enforcement action led by the Ministry of Public Security.

Is Plus Token still scamming users?

On 29th April 2020, there were screenshots of the PlusToken app circulating on Chinese social media of a supposed notice announcing that version 3.0 beta of the app is now online. Subsequently, on 4th May 2020, a further notice was issued by the PlusToken team saying that version 3.0 beta will undergo compatibility synchronization and will stop all transaction functions. The notice further added that once this version is live, some eligible users will receive a reward. However, it seems more like an effort by PlusToken’s ringleaders to placate those who have invested by giving them hope that the project may return.

Screenshots of the PlusToken app

Tip of the Iceberg

PlusToken can be seen as the tip of the Iceberg as there are many other very similar crypto Ponzi schemes and scams. These include Cloud Token, S Block, and other cloud “mining” tokens. At the end of the day, tokens that ‘guarantee’ high returns without a clear and audit-able business plan should generate red flags.

Laundering stolen funds into exchanges

Luckily research is being down to track wallets known to be associated with Plus Token (8btc.com, @doveywan, @PeckShield). Work done by @PeckShield has shown funds moving from large wallets (~5000+ Bitcoin) to smaller wallets, and eventually into cryptocurrency exchanges. Due to the large sums of cryptocurrencies moved and actively being sold off – Plus Token played a role in dropping the price of Bitcoin.

Map showing how Plus token funds are being laundered onto Exchanges (Image credit: @Silkjaer)

Known amounts scammed – List sum of BTC from identified and tracked addresses. Reports have been circulating that up to ~1% of the entire Bitcoin supply is involved in the scam. Currently more wallets are being added to this list.

70000 BTC ($700,840,000 USD)

789511 ETH ($142,111,980 USD)

26299109 EOS ($92,046,881 USD)

Known Bitcoin Wallet addresses (Source 1):

1MFgcyJ7ZNSknbTBRaih6zWDE6V1A64tRY (1865 BTC)

3ETAVt2scYBFkBFksuNDk1i5tDLQ2c4zWR (4922 BTC)

3EYsru4LUcN258sENYPu5Py3S5WnqxEcnE (3657 BTC)

3HKs1g7u5a1uU4pC5HaNooYMbL1Lao4mv4 (3928 BTC)

3ESakThMrdVVrbhhcpf9spicyjCg1Uk8Jm (3289 BTC)

33LNws16Wfs12usWBNfa1MSX3YKY6Hdayf (3270 BTC)

3HwY536CxznDxMjiRCFkpx5ykwJbJMZY4w (1725 BTC)

35bCzX3RQEWdquqCPQkmdJdu2K4ut1roUZ (3676.86 BTC)

31owhyALzzPEqUFwRbU5yQR4wNhYEjCiE5 (749.66 BTC)

3PBN3MCpDcZKr7WdyY1ULq1NeGwLNjpkj7 (12000 BTC)

14bwh6gmvol5ntwbvxqjkjdtzv4y5ebtvm (95228 BTC)

33FKcwFhFBKWHh46Ksmxs3QBu8HV7h8QdF (37922 BTC)

Known EOS Addresses of Plus Token

eospstotoken

jnhgvbkkfdjf

Known Ethereum Addresses of Plus Token

0xF4a2eFf88a408ff4c4550148151c33c93442619e

0x997114ca0830e9bee7443368fa27f4af2d4e55a6

0x0f953ef137ee0894cc06383ccb1ef77e76660b5a

Plus Token Sell-offs Responsible for Bitcoin Price Drop?

Since as early as August 2019, Chinese cryptocurrency trading groups have already been circulating that due to the sheer amount involved, the scammers trying to dispose of the ill-gotten Bitcoin are pushing prices downward. And this price dump halted on 15th August 2019, coincidentally when Binance was suspended for trading because of a system upgrade.

Discussion on PlusToken sell-offs (Credit: 8BTC)

In late November 2019, this issue was again brought to the forefront when Twitter user Ergo reported having traced 187,000 BTC of the approximately 200,000 BTC attributed to PlusToken’s investors. As to these funds, Ergo found they were “shuffled” (albeit badly, if at all) and gradually sent to various cryptocurrency exchanges and OTC brokers, primarily Huobi, for sale on the market.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Twitter FUD opining on miner capitulation in the last few days.



This got me thinking… could the selling by the PlusToken scammers have had an abnormal effect on this market cycle? pic.twitter.com/VZGjyQAxaF — Ergo ∴Politically Charged∴ (@ErgoBTC) November 21, 2019 Ergo’s findings on the PlusToken funds

Ergo predicts that if all the “mixed” funds were sold from August to November 2019, it would average out to be around 1,300 BTC sold per day. This could lead people to think it would have an effect on Bitcoin prices, which has fallen from USD $9,981.41 on 1st August 2019 to USD $7,182.89 on 4th December 2019.

Based on Ergo’s estimates of the amounts sold daily, the sell-off of the remaining 58,000 BTC or so Plus Token funds would continue for another 1.5 to 2 months.

In an apparent pattern, PlusToken scammers move their funds when BTC prices experience volatility. Such was the case on 11th February 2020, when Bitcoin trading at around USD $9,800, almost 12,000 BTC (worth around USD $118 million) from one of the addresses associated with the Plus Token funds were moved and split amongst various other wallets.

On 7th March 2020, Bitcoin was again trading at over USD $9,000. Again, Plus Token funds were being funneled through mixing services. This time, Twitter user ErgoBTC noticed that a total of 13,000 BTC (worth around USD $210 million) was involved. Analysts such as Kevin Svenson believe the scammers were “slamming the market with sell orders” every time Bitcoin prices went up so as to unload the funds.

#BTC – this is not your average sell off. Clearly a whale unloading. pic.twitter.com/jCilhe5Ajb — Kevin Svenson (@KevinSvenson_) March 8, 2020 Is there a pattern to the movement of funds associated with Plus Token?

According to ErgoBTC, the movement of funds to exchanges took a bit of a break from mid-March to early May 2020. Movement to exchanges has since then resumed and around 300-500 BTC/day is being moved to exchanges.

Our previous coverage is available here. https://t.co/OLdsTBGb8v — Ergo ∴Politically Charged∴ (@ErgoBTC) June 24, 2020

Last of PlusToken funds moved to exchanges

On 22nd June 2020, Twitter user Whale Alert found over 26 million EOS (worth over USD$67mil) had been transferred from a wallet associated with PlusToken to an unknown wallet, prompting cryptocurrency traders to go on high alert for potential downward price movement for EOS.

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 26,316,339 #EOS (67,139,663 USD) transferred from PlusToken to unknown wallet



Tx: https://t.co/dTKanT3Wtt — Whale Alert (@whale_alert) June 22, 2020

Indeed on 24th June 2020 we did see a marked dip in EOS prices, though it cannot be confirmed that this was due to a sale of the PlusToken funds.

EOS prices from 22 to 26 Jun 2020

Only a matter of a few days later on 24th June 2020, Whale Alert found another huge chunk of PlusToken funds, this time over 789,000 ETH (worth over USD$187 million) had been transferred from a PlusToken wallet to a new address, and yet again to another unknown address.

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 789,534 #ETH (187,847,558 USD) transferred from PlusToken to unknown wallet



Tx: https://t.co/z2jqlfZ21h — Whale Alert (@whale_alert) June 24, 2020

ℹ️ This transfer was made by #PlusToken — Whale Alert (@whale_alert) June 24, 2020

These funds were then further split into multiple unknown addresses of varying amounts.

Twitter user ErgoBTC, who has been following the movement of the PlusToken funds observes that the ETH that was recently transferred is the remainder of PlusToken’s unmixed coins which are now being moved to mixers. The purpose of this is to cloud the movement history of the PlusToken funds, so that they can avoid being flagged by exchanges when they are eventually sold on the market.

With all the excitement, a short update on their BTC is warranted.



We have also seen just about all of the remaining unmixed coins ~22k on our watch list begin entering their mixer over the last few days. https://t.co/DLR1M7xty9 — Ergo ∴Politically Charged∴ (@ErgoBTC) June 24, 2020

In addition to the movements of EOS and ETH, it’s been a very busy week for PlusToken. So far they have moved over USD$428 million worth of cryptocurrencies to new addresses and the following exchanges: Binance, Huobi, HBTC, OKEx, Gate.io and MXC Exchange.

This week the following #PlusToken funds have been on the move to exchanges and new addresses for mixing:



– 22k BTC ($203m USD)

– 789k ETH ($183m)

– 26m EOS ($68m)

– 20m XRP ($4m)



The big question: can the crypto markets absorb this volume or are we headed lower? — Spencer Noon (@spencernoon) June 25, 2020

Are Exchanges doing anything to deter scammers?

Those behind Plustoken rely on cryptocurrency Exchanges to dispose of their scammed funds. Cryptocurrency exchanges do have Know Your Customer (KYC) measures in place which should identify and report any such activity since it clearly constitutes money laundering. However previous massive sell-offs by PlusToken took place in Huobi and Okex, thus demonstrating that their KYC and AML measures were ineffective in stopping them in that instance.

Since the previous selloff, exchanges have stepped up their standards. For example, in reaction to the selloff Huobi has launched Star Atlas, an on-chain analytics tool to identify problematic activities such as fraud and money laundering on their Exchange. Meanwhile, peer-to-peer exchange Paxful has partnered with Chainalysis so that the exchange’s transactions can be monitored in real time.

In the latest sell off, it has already been found that substantial funds are being mixed and deposited into Binance, Huobi, HBTC, OKEx, Gate.io and MXC Exchange. Nothing has happened yet, but many traders are already watching to see if a market crash could be incoming, whilst questioning whether the affected exchanges will take any action on the funds that are now in their hands.

#Plustoken has been a major market factor since early 2019.



Analysis from @ErgoBTC & others proves ~165k BTC from PlusToken were mixed & sent to Huobi & OKex since August.



This week >$200mm of ETH/EOS/XRP have moved.@HuobiGlobal and @OKEx have remained entirely silent.



Why? — Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) June 24, 2020

Plus Token Sources and References

Chinese Sources and News Coverage

Special thanks to Matthew Graham for providing the videos and research!

https://3kemao.com/archives/124864?from=singlemessage&isappinstalled=0 https://www.ccvalue.cn/article/3952.html?from=singlemessage https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/EJLo-Rjjzz283FOCbzuLuA https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/HQxl5gKd0105tUIsQ0TQPg https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/rPtQAo0sf4P_LDM-8K0Z1g

Crypto Wallet Addresses

Chainnode Research: https://www.8btc.com/article/440193

BlockTempo: https://www.blocktempo.com/unable-to-withdarw-plustoken-is-crashing-down/

Plus Token Wallet Addresses: http://gscaijing.com/archives/21291

CoinTelegraph https://cointelegraph.com/news/3b-ponzi-scheme-is-now-allegedly-dumping-bitcoin-by-the-hundreds

Arrests / Man-hunt

SCMP: https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3016604/six-chinese-nationals-wanted-beijing-internet-scam-arrested

Plus Token sell-offs and Bitcoin price correlation?

8BTC: https://news.8btc.com/bitcoin-dip-allegedly-a-result-of-incessant-bitcoin-selloffs-from-3-billion-ponzi-scheme

Findings from Twitter user Ergo: https://twitter.com/ErgoBTC/status/1197496064854634496?s=20

Updated on 4th December 2019 to include new section- Plus Token Sell-offs Responsible for Bitcoin Price Drop?

Updated on 18th December 2019 to correct spelling mistakes and more details of how the Ponzi Scheme operated

Updated on 9th March 2020 on the latest Plus Token moves in 2020.

Updated on 25th May 2020 on the latest PlusToken prosecutions and ver 3.0 beta of the app.

Updated on 25th June 2020 on the movements of PlusToken’s remaining unmixed funds in the week of 21st June 2020.

Updated on 2nd July 2020 on what exchanges are doing in response

The information provided in this article is intended for general guidance and information purposes only. Contents of this article are under no circumstances intended to be considered as investment, business, legal or tax advice. We do not accept any responsibility for individual decisions made based on this article and we strongly encourage you to do your own research before taking any action. Although best efforts are made to ensure that all information provided herein is accurate and up to date, omissions, errors, or mistakes may occur.