Not long ago, cryptocurrency payments firm and wallet provider FoPay acquired Estonia-based cryptocurrency exchange AliExchange for 1,000,000 Foin tokens (FOIN token). At FOIN prices at the time, the deal was worth $ 2.1 billion. However, over time, it is easy to see traces of suspicious movements in FOIN’s price history, as well as a network of dubious business relationships related to the development of this currency.
The doubts revolve around FOIN token
The FOIN developer, the Foin Foundation, made the payment mentioned above and holds about 20 million FOIN tokens in the reserve fund (equivalent to 20% of the total FOIN supply). Besides, the Foin Foundation is also planning to pay a small amount of FOIN tokens to compensate existing AliExchange shareholders. At the same time, mass balances will be kept in AliExchange in terms of liquidity and capital costs.
Observing the price movements of FOIN token and the activities of companies, we can see some suspicious situations. The token was launched at the end of July 2018, with a price of about $ 400. After that, FOIN token gradually increased in value throughout 2019 and surged from $ 1,492 on November 1 to about $ 2,574 on December 15. This is also the time when the company revealed the acquisition of AliExchange and suspended investor withdrawals.
The report then stated:
“FoPay has explicitly suspended foin withdrawals until December 31, 2019, due to the merger with AliExchange. FOIN token withdrawal service will continue on January 1, 2020. There will be no extend it after this deadline.”
Since the withdrawal notice was suspended, FOIN prices have increased further to around $ 3,200, recording an increase of 70% from the previous month.
Source: CoinMarketCap
FoPay’s operational strategy is not to allow investors to liquidate their assets immediately. In an AMA in April 2018, the organization said:
“Experience in the cryptocurrency market shows us that there is always a certain amount of panic sellers that drive prices down. We have taken care of it and devised a suitable strategy to fix this problem. Such users don’t engage in long-term investment and don’t want to get good value from it, and they care about short-term returns. They don’t seem to understand how the investment works. ‘re preparing the whole ecosystem for circulation and deposit grow due to this circulation. ”
However, it is suspicious that more than 90% of FOIN trading volume is concentrated on the Estonia cryptocurrency exchange P2PB2B.io. The P2PB2B website has been registered with the DomainsByProxy anonymous domain registration service. Besides, another FOIN listed exchange, HotBit, also registered the domain name with DomainsByProxy. On its website, HotBit claims to be logged in both Hong Kong and Estonia. However, we cannot find any business registration for HotBit in Estonia, only the registration in Hong Kong.
![the-foin-foundation-and-foin-token-seem-to-be-playing-price-manipulation-with-investors[3]](https://d3f5j9upkzs19s.cloudfront.net/azcoinnews/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/the-foin-foundation-and-foin-token-seem-to-be-playing-price-manipulation-with-investors3.png)
Source: CoinMarketCap
Moreover, the FOIN price is entirely different on each exchange. At press time, the token is trading for $ 3,200 on HotBit, while it has soared to $ 4,000 on P2PB2B.
Fopay, FOIN token is related to blacklisted companies
Initially, FOIN managed by the now-defunct Financial.org site is believed to have been registered in the United Kingdom. However, Financial.org has provided investment services without regulatory permission. Therefore, FCA put Financial.org on its watchlist in May 2018 and warned investors not to trade with the company. At the time, some FOIN investors shared that Financial.org would close their accounts and take 20% of the money if they didn’t increase the minimum investment from $ 3,000 to $ 10,000.
That same month, financial regulators in the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand also included Financial.org on the alert list of unauthorized companies.
Besides, FOIN information on CoinMarketCap also has a warning as follows:
“Warning! We have received a report that Foin token is affiliated with Financial.org, an organization that is on the watchlist of some regulators.”
An employee at Dun & Bradstreet confirmed that there was only one company on their global database is registered with “Financial.org.” The company is called “Viet Nam Financial.org Investment Company Limited” and is registered in Vietnam under the Investment License Code 0314733223.
Through a search of Vietnamese business registries, it was proved that a legal entity called Financial.org could be found, with the registration number matching that of “Vietnam Financial.org Investment Company Limited.”
![the-foin-foundation-and-foin-token-seem-to-be-playing-price-manipulation-with-investors[1]](https://d3f5j9upkzs19s.cloudfront.net/azcoinnews/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/the-foin-foundation-and-foin-token-seem-to-be-playing-price-manipulation-with-investors1.png)
Source: EMERHUB
On its official Facebook page, Financial.org Vietnam, the company has been actively promoting Foin-related products, including foin’s Real Estate and accepting tokens as payment vehicles luxury, as well as partnering with cryptocurrency payment solution providers.
Ridiculous requests from FoPay, FOIN, and Financial.org
In June 2018, Financial.org unilaterally converted investors’ dollar accounts into FOIN tokens and blocked withdrawals. They then moved the FOIN wallet to a migration portal called FoinWalletMigration.com (FWM).
In September 2019, Financial.org was shut down. In mid-November, FoPay asked investors to transfer tokens from FWM to its platform, with a mandatory fee of $ 8.75 / FOIN. The deadline for FOIN withdrawal is set on December 2, 2019. Nonetheless, FoPay also claims not to be responsible for any unsuccessful wire transfers from FWM to the platform.
The company announcement caused a backlash from the FOIN hodlers. Some users began to suspect that the FOIN volume was bogus and doubted the creation of the FoPay wallet. Others seem to believe that the price of foin will even drop to 0 after December 2.
What is the real relationship between Financial.org and FoPay, FOIN token?
The Foin Foundation was founded in Switzerland in 2019 as a non-profit organization in the state of Zug. The purpose of Foin Foundation is to support and promote research on Blockchain. Since then, promoting talent training and entrepreneurship in the field of Blockchain. However, the Foin Foundation operates without permission from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA).
Besides, the answer to the relationship between Foin Foundation and Financial.org is not clear. However, AliExchange has three valid business licenses in Estonia. One for acting as a financial institution, one was allowing it to work as a cryptocurrency exchange and one allowing the company to provide users with cryptocurrency wallets. The first license was granted on May 7, 2019, while the other two were issued in the first week of November 2019.
FoPay is owned and operated by a Ukraine-registered company called Foins Blockchain Limited Liability Company. The company is registered under the identification code of legal entity 42019553.
After registration, the company’s operating apparatus included the founder of Dmytro Lunhu, the director of Ukrainian citizen Yevhen Petelin. The CEO of FoPay is Ruslan Salatov. However, Salatov’s LinkedIn page does not mention any of his work on Foin, FoPay, or related businesses.
Read more:
- Scammers Threaten To Cut Their Victims’ Electricity Unless They Get Paid In Bitcoin
- BTSE And The “Shameless” Justifications For Their Fraud