IS THE BLACK HAND NOW IN VERICOIN?
First of all, lets make this perfectly clear: I have no indication whatsoever that there was anything wrong, in the way of scams, with
Vericoin. As a matter of fact the only obstacle to list Vericoin in the WALL OF HONOR was the fact that their thread is censored and much more censored their IRC,. Also as a matter of fact, not only I have traded Vericoin quite successfully in the recent past but I also hold, at the time of this writing, what I consider a significant investment in it.
Most of the previous considerations held true... until the dawn of
June 25 when, continuing an upside trend of significance, Vericoin experimented a huge pump of
almost 80% to a high above
46000 sat (on Cryptsy... peculiarly the high was just
38666 on Mintpal. The subsequent dump -both on huge volume- took it down to 25/26 on Mintpal and Cryptsy respectively. "It is just another pump & dump instance", you say? well, color me a bit skeptical if you will for I believe I have circumstantial evidence that points to an infiltration of
The Black Hand in Vericoin. You know, the infamous Black Hand of Blackcoin that I have uncovered (not that they were precisely hiding their activities, more like brag about them by the visible leader of the gang, Morituri13/Dognip).
This P&D has the footprints of the so many times repeated scheme on Blackcoin that, to me, reveals a clear modus operandi. But lets forget about the gut feeling and go with the evidence: We all know, since a couple days ago, who the developers of Vericoin are: Two students from Rutgers University and one ex- Rutgers alumni who works as a programmer for Microsoft, Open Drive division. These guys had no connection whatsoever with Blackcoin, right? Well, not quite. One of them
Patrick Nosker, has expressed and posted "appreciation" of Blackcoin... not exactly something he has dispensed towards other competing coins. Besides, I believe they have somehow adopted for Vericoin some of the features of Blackcoin. What they have shared with Blackcoin, for sure, is an investing game which is the brainchild of
Eugene (Yevgeniy) Rokhlin and his associate St.Gnu, both owners of the Blackcoin multipool, and both core members of the dev team at Blackcoin as well as their foundation. Nothing in itself suspicious at all, right?
But there's more. A certain
Joel Bosh, better known as a Howie Mandel look-and-copied-style-alike, Puerto Rican of Cuban parents and owner of a clothing company in Miami, known in crypto for some of his handles, such as
WizFarm and
WizRig, as well as for being instrumental and host of the
Blackcasts of Blackcoin, is all of a sudden all over the place not just promoting Vericoin but also "brokering" deals for them. Now Bosch is Black Hand I'm pretty sure, and he is also a Miami resident... coincidentally the city where both Blackcoin and Vericoin just have happened to contract separate PR agencies to promote their respective coins. Furthermore, I believe
Morituri13/Dognip actually works for the one that Blackcoin contracted and that was visited by the infamous Soepkip in flowery pants. Soepkip posed at the entrance of the PR firm with none other than a very formally at-work-dressed Morituri13/Dognip. So, same deal, different firm, same location, same commission for Bosch? I can't know for sure at this stage, but all of these circumstances point very clear to me towards one direction. And it is ALWAYS,
WHERE THE MONEY IS. And the money is in the P&Ds, same exact formula than the one used so many times, successfully, in Blackcoin.
So what is what I call The Black Hand or La Mano Nera? Well, in the real world, they would have been thrown in jail a long time ago for what they do is organized crime, pure and simple. Oh not strong arming anyone for "protection", mind you, but the newer version of insider trading which, in crypto, means to actually decide the actions and strategies to procure the most profitable pump and dump schemes, from the time and place of the investments of the "mined" proceedings to the creation of
The Black Shield to dump into it under the pretension that it's a tool to try and stabilize the price. In the warped world of crypto, this type of activity is not just condoned or ignored by the BC community, but it is even something to brag about. And brag he (morituri13/Dognip) did, posting on the original BC thread that they were
"a group of investors, without formal contract, just some papers signed". This "group of investors" is the one facilitating the unload of the millions of coins premined by Yevgeniy and his associates, designing the strategy and donating significant amounts towards the contract of BC with Morituri13's PR firm, and also donating the Titan drawn for the benefit of Yevgeniy and St.GNU's pool, among many other deeds.
There are other "groups of investors" manipulating crypto markets, of course. The difference is that The Black Hand operates from the inside, with not just access to inside information, all the information, but also actually designing the overall strategy. Quite a big difference indeed. The difference between freedom and jail in the real world.
Has The Black Hand infiltrated Vericoin? I cannot know for sure. You will have to be the judge.