Two Ponzi schemes on Ethereum, Forsage and Contribute, are hogging up 13% of the network’s total gas

By Selena On Sep 22, 2020

Two Ponzi schemes on Ethereum, Forsage, and Contribute, are among the most significant gas consumers globally, increasing already worsening congestion and rising transaction fees.

Both scams take up about 13% of the total gas on Ethereum

Uniswap and Tether are the names on top gas consumption Ethereum with 30% and 25% market share. Then followed by Forsage alongside the Emerging Ponzi Plan Contribute in fourth place. Both Ponzies account for about 13% of the total gas on Ethereum.

Contribute, and the governance token “TRIB” is the newest Ponzi on Ethereum. Contribute himself is decentralized capital cooperation, which incentivizes early investors to earn more TRIB tokens. No information on the composition of the liquidity providers (LP) has been made public. Also, details about the show’s founder, Kento Sadim, aren’t much. Apart from no information on the founder, other indicators show the project is a Ponzi, like the price floor of the token.

This is fine dot gifhttps://t.co/8PskXMF0Hj

— Riccardo Spagni (@fluffypony) September 20, 2020

Like Forsage’s “registrationExt” function called for user registration from referrals, the smart contract for claiming TRIB tokens on Contribute is a computationally-intensive process, consuming a great deal of gas on Ethereum. For comparison, TRIB’s smart contract takes up more gas than other complex transactions, like those conducted by Chainlink and 1inch.exchange.

Preston Byrne, a lawyer at Anderson Kill Law, said:

“Like Paycoin, Contribute could soon face the Securities Exchange Commission charges for fraud conviction and a jail sentence.”

These Ponzi schemes hamper the development of the DeFi space by clogging the network and tarnishing the reputation of the entire crypto industry.

The ETH network needs to change

The Ethereum network has reached its limit of capacity. Air limit at maximum. A few months ago, a transaction would be made in minutes; Now, a transaction’s confirmation time takes almost an hour. For example, a simple swap transaction converting Ethereum to Dai on Uniswap costs over $ 20. These exorbitant fees hurt the growth of decentralized peer-to-peer platforms, resulting in a move back to the centralized exchanges these DeFi protocols seek to replace.

As consumption from applications pushes gas charges higher, Ethereum is gradually becoming a “whale chain, “where only high-volume users can afford transactions⁠ — similar to Bitcoin during times of congestion.

Ethereum Gas Fees, Time for Confirmation of Transaction, and Gas Limit | Source: ETH Gas Station

However, ETH remains the top choice for DeFi applications because of its popular ERC-20 token standard and its ability to integrate many other blockchain protocols easily. Along with the issuance of USDT on ETH, the network is currently being used for more useful financial applications, rather than being driven by games like Crypto Kitties, which clog the network in 2017-2018.

But the Ethereum network is at its limit, it really is.

You can see the ETH price here.

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