Four months ago, German ICO SaveDroid shocked the crypto world with their infamous PR stunt of faking an exit scam to present a “very important, very serious message” - that there are a lot of exit scams in the ICO space. Today, they released yet another perturbing message on their website:
This message, titled “Important Listing Announcement”, was posted by CEO Yassin Hankir and the SaveDroid team on their website, their Twitter, as well as their official Telegram group. Apparently, there was a technical problem with SaveDroid’s listing on HitBTC, which forced the team to put their smart contract on hold “to ensure the best liquidity for SVD at listing start.”
Hankir and his team assured their investors that at the meantime, they are doing their best to resolve the situation by “talking to HitBTC”. They also promised that they will inform their investors “immediately” once they figure out what happened.
Outrage in the SaveDroid Community
Nonetheless, the SaveDroid community didn’t take this news very well. Cries of outrage and disbelief shook the Telegram channel at a level reminiscent of the time when Hankir and his team pulled a ‘fake’ exit scam back in April.
A user that goes by the name Kam expressed his disappointment in the SaveDroid team, accusing them of fraud:
“Yassin, what was your team doing last 6 months man? We did pay money for this and we are suffering for 6 months. Even after 180 days, there is no sign of tokens in my wallet. Can you guys at least transfer the tokens to the people who did invest money into this???? I can not believe that this all is happening.”Another user, Marc Van Benthum, described SaveDroid as the “absolute worst crypto company in Europe”:
Other users simply portrayed their dismay in the form of memes:
It seems like a huge majority of the SaveDroid community doesn’t seem to be very happy with the fact that their tokens have been locked up for a prolonged period of time after the end of the ICO, not to mention that the HitBTC listing has been confirmed all the way since February 7 - over half a year ago:
SaveDroid’s Exit Scam - As It Happened
This wasn’t the first time SaveDroid has pulled something as unsettling as the current listing hiccup. Four months ago, the Frankfurt-based ICO company sent the crypto world into disarray when they vacated their offices and deleted everything on their website, leaving behind this South Park-inspired meme:
It didn’t take long before netizens, both investors and non-investors alike, began connecting the dots on Twitter and realizing what savedroid was attempting to do. They quickly found another clue – Yassin Hankir’s pinned tweet:
However, a couple of hours later, Hankir and his team backtracked - restoring their website completely and added this video at the very top:
In the four-and-a-half minute video, Hankir addresses what appears to be the craziest PR stunt in crypto history. He starts off by apologizing for the PR stunt – shutting down the Telegram channels, abandoning their offices, replacing their website with a South Park meme etc. Then, he proceeds to present a “very important, very serious message:” Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Steemit, and join our Telegram channel for the latest blockchain and cryptocurrency news“If we look at this [crypto] market…we see that there is so much scam happening – scam from the beginning to the very end of an ICO, exit scams all over the place, and I believe what we’ve seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Hankir acknowledges that ICOs are a really innovative and effective way for small startups to raise funds for their business ventures, and that these scams in the crypto world are “endangering” this golden opportunity. He also mentioned that proper regulation is important to reduce the chances of these scams happening in the future:
“We need to establish high-quality ICO standards in order to have a good future for the ICO market to be a relevant financing tool for innovative, successful and trustworthy startups in the future”.
Moving Forward?
Nevertheless, SaveDroid’s repeated acts of untrustworthiness seems to be rubbing off their investors the wrong way. With their own investors giving up hope on the team, it is only a matter of time before the whole company comes crashing down, bringing their investors’ hard-earned cash with it.