As cryptocurrencies continue to grow in popularity, more and more digital tokens and currencies continue to launch. One such digital currency is DasCoin, which was launched in 2017. While many have invested in DasCoin, just as they have with other cryptocurrencies, it now appears that DasCoin – a multi-level marketing (MLM) company – may be a scam preying on unknowing cryptocurrency newcomers.

Calling itself the “currency of trust”, DasCoin is a “cryptocurrency” operation that seemingly works effectively in the same way as the disgraced pyramid scheme OneCoin. Anyone looking to invest in DasCoin can do so through DasCoin’s NetLeaders. The main role of the NetLeaders is to “educate” people and spread the news about DasCoin to influence more people to join its network and secure their own NetLeaders licenses, which range from anywhere between €100 to €25,000. The license subscription fee is paid using fiat currency. For any “investor”, a license is their entry point and the higher their investment, the more cycles they are able to get to increase the amount of DasCoins they can earn.

In one of its promotional videos, DasCoin introduces its team of “NetLeaders” who include a Ugandan government senior official and advisor to the president, a financial advisor, a university professor and an entrepreneur. The company claims that the team has already started implementing solutions on the DasCoin blockchain, such as smart contracts, record keeping, a utility value chain, and remittances.

DasCoin’s activities in African villages, where it purports to give access to utilities like clean water and electricity, seem to be an effort targeted at luring unsuspecting people into what can only be described as a pyramid scheme.

How Digital Currencies Work

Cryptocurrencies were established to give people the freedom to make financial transactions without the need for a financial intermediary. They run on decentralised networks that allow individuals to electronically exchange money just the way they would an email. These peer-to-peer transactions are processed over a blockchain network, happen almost in real-time and can be done by anyone with an Internet connection without having to pay money to become an affiliate.

However, this is far from how the DasCoin “cryptocurrency” operates as it only works within its own DasCoin “Blockchain Technology” network.

How DasCoin Works

Contrary to how actual cryptocurrencies work, DasCoin requires those willing to invest – affiliates – to purchase licenses from the NetLeaders. As such, affiliates earn money when the members they “educate” invest in DasCoin. Affiliates are encouraged to invest anything between €100 to €25,000 and, in return, receive between 1,265 and 373,750 cycles of up to three upgrades. The cycles are the basic building blocks of the DasCoin Blockchain Technology. An upgrade gets triggered when the cycles converted into DasCoins goes below 50 percent efficiency from a starting point of 100 percent efficiency.

The NetLeaders affiliates are the only people who hold the DasCoin cryptocurrency while DasCoin’s internal value is regulated by DasCoin. The investor contributions are made to the DasCoin “portfolio manager” who is in charge of the whole operation. However, it seems that the work of the “portfolio manager” is to steer clear of real investment ventures and, instead, transfer money from one client to the other as there is no visible course of action by the company to generate any revenue for its “investors”.

Judging by the setup of its operations, DasCoin looks like a typical Ponzi scheme that is built in a way that the first investors recruit more investors who are required to recruit additional investors for earlier investors to make money.

Typical of similar schemes, investors are lured into the schemes by the pretense of being educated on the evident opportunities that will provide them with a chance to acquire wealth quickly. In DasCoin, this is through the money that is generated from the DasCoin NetLeaders who then recruit affiliate investors. Similar to the fraudulent MLM OneCoin network that collapsed recently, DasCoin basically operates the same way suggesting that it is more of a scam than a “currency of trust”. The DasCoin model with varying upgrades and cycles as shown below:

Standard – invest €100 EUR and receive 1265 cycles and 1 upgrade

Manager – invest €500 EUR and receive 6325 cycles and 1 upgrade

Pro – invest €2000 EUR and receive 27,600 cycles and 1 upgrade

Executive – invest €5000 EUR and receive 74,750 cycles and 2 upgrades

Vice-President – invest €12,500 and receive 247,500 cycles and 2 upgrades

President – invest €25,000 EUR and receive 373,750 cycles and 3 upgrades

People Behind DasCoin

DasCoin’s CEO and founder, Michael Mathias, has been previously linked to the OneCoin MLM pyramid scheme that went bankrupt. In a video addressing his involvement in OneCoin, Mathias admits that he got curious about cryptocurrency after seeing the OneCoin model which he calls “interesting”. He further states that he scheduled meetings with the people behind OneCoin as part of his research to understand the model better and even bought some of the packages OneCoin was offering.

In September 2017, Malta Today ran a piece on Mathias after he was seen on a picture with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, which suggested that DasCoins is an offshoot of OneCoin and runs the same fraudulent business model. Mathias responded by referring to the article as “fake news” and stated he has no affiliation with OneCoin. However, according to Behind MLM, he was named as one of the hosts at a OneCoin launch event in the U.S. in 2015.

Mathias has once also termed the OneCoin model as a strong marketing model that he wanted to protect and was the motivator behind starting DasCoin. This would suggest that DasCoin was not designed to be the “currency of trust” it claims to be but was instead designed to carry on the OneCoin MLM legacy in a new format. If not, why develop something that is so similar to a model that made thousands of investors lose their money with lies of earning more money?

Is DasCoin a Scam?

A user by the name of “tmpf” wrote about DasCoin in the Bitcoin Talk Forum: “[DasCoin is a] virus as in contagious and dangerous scamming methods, not as in malware on your hard disk. The Onecoin model of bullshit “cryptocurrency” married to a hard sell MLM pyramid is attracting several copycats, Leocoin, Capricoin, Swisscoin and Swiscoin amongst many others…Gullible real “investors” soon realise they are locked into the scheme and all they have bought is promises of Da Moon from chronic MLM promoters like J Ryan Conley and the Onecoin Mafia. The latest in this shower of shit is DAScoin, operated by Coinleaders, a Singapore/Dubai/Hong Kong based collection of MLM veterans.”

In addition, an article on Steemit by “cryptoviking” gives an in-depth review on why DasCoin is very likely a scam. And he is not the only one. Ethan Vanderbuilt also wrote an article detailing why DasCoin is a scam and why people need to keep away from it. Both authors have received both positive and negative feedback on their articles with the majority of the criticism coming from people who have a stake in DasCoin.

While there are some who view MLMs as an honest investment opportunity, research has shown that in such businesses, participants tend to lose most of their invested funds. This has especially been the case in the cryptocurrency space. Those who benefit from such schemes are the founders and those on the top of the pyramid who control the money and when the network has grown and they have cashed in, cry foul by going bankrupt or claiming a hack and not paying out the promised returns to investors.

DasCoin’s framework is nothing new as it is based on the same type of MLM operation that was used by pyramid schemes such as OneCoin, MMM, and BitConnect before they collapsed leaving their victims with millions of losses. As an investor, you should always be cautious and conduct thorough due diligence before making any investments, especially when they involve aspects of multi-level marketing.