Issuing 20 kinds of MLM coins in one year to attract 4 million members： revealing the ＂history of collecting money＂ of MLM group Vpay
Invited author of Wen Shu’s mutual chain pulse, fire failure
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Cross-chain pulse: compared with a so-called direct selling platform, it took more than 20 years to develop millions of members in China; Under the guise of blockchain, VPAY has developed 4 million members after issuing MLM coins for more than a year, and has escaped many regulatory attacks. How does VPAY do it? Cross-chain Pulse Invitation has been tracking VPAY’s "failure" and deciphering this pyramid scheme’s money-collecting practices from its "history of money-collecting".
Among the pyramid schemes, if VPAY (now renamed "Vtoken") says second, I’m afraid no one dares to say first.
Since its establishment on November 23, 2017, Vpay has rapidly "expanded" under the banner of "blockchain". According to the public data of VPAY to its members, more than 20 kinds of MLM coins have been intensively issued in more than one year, which has rapidly developed 4 million members. Incomplete statistics have raised more than 4.1 billion yuan. The number of 4 million members is second to none in the pyramid schemes that have been investigated or in batches.
Looking beyond the blockchain industry, MLM organizations that can grow to millions of people in a short time may be beyond the reach of even the sensational "Health Empire Quanjian". What is even more surprising is that after other MLM projects have "closed the net", this MLM platform, which has been operating for a year, has not collapsed, and there is a faint momentum of whitewashing itself.
(Vtoken’s Nasdaq big screen advertisement)
Behind-the-scenes bosses never reveal their "real bodies", and the main operators are "three caves of cunning rabbits". How did the Vpay platform develop step by step? What is the operation mode hidden behind Vpay?
"MLM+crowdfunding", attracting 4.1 billion yuan a year.
In November 2017, Vpay issued the first virtual currency asset-Vpay coins ("VPC") at the moment when the concept of blockchain was in vogue, with the initial 10 million pieces as seed assets, and each 1.2 yuan, VPAY called it "platform mother coin".
Unlike other digital currency, new users can’t buy Vpay coins directly, and they must buy the balance from the recommender before they can convert it into Vpay coins. However, Vpay’s money-making mechanism is very attractive. Its static income allows users to enjoy "five times the leverage of points and six times the reinvestment" immediately after purchasing the balance, and then release two thousandths of points every day, while its dynamic income allows members to continuously develop offline, accelerate the release of points and get balance rewards.
With this reward mechanism and pyramid scheme, Vpay members have developed by leaps and bounds. According to the information released by Vpay operating members in April 2018, by the end of March 2018, the number of its members had reached 173,000.
(Source: Vpay published data)
With the rapid growth of Vpay members, the "bubble" in Vpay’s treasury board is also getting bigger and bigger. In order to eliminate the internal bubble, Vpay raised 5 million pieces and 10 million pieces of Vpay coins at the price of 6 yuan/piece and 31.4 yuan/piece on March 13 and June 13, 2018 respectively.
By June 2018, Vpay claimed that its membership had reached 892,000. Although there was a lot of water in it, this month was a watershed in the development of Vpay.
(Geographical distribution of Vpay members Source: Baidu)
On June 19th, 2018, Vpay launched a crowdfunding campaign for the second air coin Uselink (ringcoin) besides Vpay. The number of crowdfunding was 42 million pieces, and the crowdfunding price was 10 yuan/piece. However, this crowdfunding campaign was not perfect and only 72.28% of the original plan was completed.
(Source: Vpay published data)
Then, on August 19 and August 28, 2018, Vpay successively completed the crowdfunding of smart home chain (SMTH coin) and game chain (GCC coin).
Since then, Vpay has started the crazy mode of pyramid selling coin crowdfunding. According to the author’s statistics, in the second half of 2018, the number of air coins raised by Vpay reached as many as 12 times, and the types of pyramid schemes reached 11 kinds, basically there were two pyramid schemes crowdfunding every month on average.
Among them, the large amount of crowdfunding includes ABS chain, VTS coin love chain (CLC coin) and SFIS (super interstellar file system) in the name of "Ma Yun". According to the actual progress and crowdfunding price, the final crowdfunding amount is 200 million yuan, 250 million yuan, 150 million yuan and 198 million yuan respectively.
Of course, there are also projects with less successful crowdfunding, such as IPC coin (IPchain) and the fourth Vpay coin crowdfunding, which only completed 59.62% and 49.25% of the planned progress.
However, this does not affect the crazy development of Vpay and its off-line and wanton accumulation of wealth.
In January 2019, the Vpay operator announced that its membership reached 4 million, which means that its membership has increased 22 times in 11 months.
In addition to the surge in the number of members, Vpay has made a lot of money through crowdfunding and pyramid schemes. According to the author’s rough statistics, from November 23, 2017 to the end of January 2019, Vpay conducted a total of 21 pyramid schemes, with a total amount of 4.103 billion yuan.
However, behind the crazy crowdfunding, hidden dangers are growing. After Vpay brought the crowdfunding model and pyramid scheme to the extreme, the "bubble" of the capital plate was difficult to digest, and the balance in the hands of a large number of Vpay members was not taken over. Finally, in November 2018, a large number of large households with more than 10 million yuan in currency were smashed.
Affected by this, in December 2018, a large number of Vpay members began to panic. Although Vpay was replaced with a new vest "Vtoken" in January this year, it is obvious that a large number of Vpay members do not buy it.
In the five air coin crowdfunding in January 2019, three air coin projects on the Vpay platform failed to meet expectations, among which RDC coins (random chain) and FAC(Fashion-chain) only completed 32.23% and 31.92% of the original planned progress, which basically failed.
In the crowdfunding in February, the STO crowdfunding project originally planned to start on February 14th has not been followed, and there is no news.
Even some Vpay members have revealed in the Weibo that "Vpay’s fund disk is almost untenable. At the end of 2018, Vpay changed the reinvestment system and restrictions, which may be because Vpay operators are trying to delay the running time."
Reveal the operation mode of Vpay
From the quiet birth of Vpay coins more than a year ago, it has developed into a 4 million-member organization. Although Vpay organizations have been repeatedly exposed by the media and attacked by the police, they can still expand wildly, and it is inseparable from its carefully planned operation mode.
(Vpay slogan)
From the very beginning, the Vpay project was publicized, saying that it planned to build the so-called "nine strategic layouts of V ecology", including V payment (Vpay), V mall, V community, V public welfare, V credit, V loan, V chat, V cash and V capital, and gave this goal a resounding slogan: "Vpay, create human financial freedom!" .
And Vpay claims that the value of all digital assets is also based on the realization of this "nine strategic layouts of V Ecology". However, it is not enough to have a grand vision. Like all pyramid schemes and air coins, Vpay also found a so-called "former Google executive" Mark Mino as its platform.
(Vpay "founder": Mark Mino)
But what really confuses the audience with the Vpay model is that it has built a number of self-media websites that can sound at any time.
According to the author’s statistics, there are at least 10 self-media websites operated by the team behind Vpay. Although these websites have rough pages and have not been filed in China, they update Vpay-related information every day, and the update frequency is even as high as that of most blockchain media.
For example, the V Assistant website updates the audio content of Vpay leaders and team "teachers" every day, which is almost one of the main positions for "online brainwashing" of new Vpay members.
(v assistant)
In addition, the "footprint" of the Vpay team has frequently appeared on various classified content platforms, such as Himalayan, Sina Weibo, Baidu Post Bar, Simple Book and Zhihu, among which many Vpay fans have spread and developed offline for it.
(Vtoken Himalayan course)
On the online platform, another core position of Vpay is WeChat community. Through the first-level referees, Vpay can establish WeChat communities all over the country in a relatively short time, so as to quickly control a large number of members.
For example, on January 20, 2019, the annual meeting planned by Vpay in Chengdu, there were only 20 local Vpay WeChat communities in Chengdu, with thousands of people.
These Vpay WeChat communities are well-organized and well-organized, and it is basically difficult to join the group without referees. In the WeChat community, not only Vpay team leaders regularly share courses, members exchange messages, but also referees at all levels recycle the "balance" and even airdrop and pull the offer.
In addition to the online platform, frequently holding offline meetings is also a common practice of the Vpay team to brainwash new and old members.
(Vpay and SFIS participate in industry summit)
In 2018, Vpay not only organized offline meetings, raised funds or issued new coins in Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hong Kong and other cities, but also participated in the blockchain industry summit repeatedly, becoming one of the regular army circles in the business world and clearing its name for itself.
(Vpay participates in blockchain industry conference)
It is worth noting that if the above-mentioned operation modes of the Vpay team are aimed at pyramid schemes and offline development, then in the second half of 2018, the emergence of projects such as Vpay Mall, Vpay Hotel, Vpay Supermarket and Vpay Restaurant is worthy of attention, and Vpay may be trying to whitewash itself.
(Vpay Hotel and Vpay Commercial Street)
Especially in January this year, after the upgrade of Vpay, the interface and operation mode of the new version of Vtoken APP are almost indistinguishable from the mainstream blockchain wallet.
(Vtoken wallet operation interface)
Imagine that when a MLM platform with billions of dollars and 4 million members completely puts on the cloak of "blockchain" and begins to "enter" the physical industry. Can you really tell the truth from the falsehood?
* The content in this article does not represent the viewpoint of mutual chain pulse, so mutual chain pulse does not bear any legal responsibility for the content of this article.
This article first appeared on WeChat WeChat official account: Cross-Chain Pulse. The content of the article belongs to the author’s personal opinion and does not represent Hexun.com’s position. Investors should operate accordingly, at their own risk.