LoopX loan platform disappeared with $4.5 million collected in its ICO

The startup LoopX, which promised a blockchain platform for loans, disappeared suddenly and without a trace with 4.5 million dollars collected in an Initial Currency Offer (ICO), thus swindling the people who had invested.

For now, the official LoopX page is disabled, along with your Facebook account and other networks such as YouTube or Telegram. Meanwhile, the account of Twitter contains only one tweet that leads to one of the notes that broadcast the event, but it is unclear if it was put by the team LoopX or someone who took over the name of the account after being eliminated.

On LoopX only the initial publication remains in Bitcointalk, in which the starting dates of the ICO of the startup are indicated, in which they would accept payments in bitcoins and ethers (ETH). The pre-ICO began on January 3 of this year, and the offer as such was scheduled for January 10. In the offer of coins, 80% of the tokens were sold for 5 rounds. Supposedly, about 8,500,000 LPX would be offered, with different prices. From this the team behind LoopX managed to obtain the approximate 4.5 million dollars.

Around 16,000 users were scammed by LoopX, who allegedly invested 276.21 BTC and 2,446.70 -corresponding to the cached version of the page. Likewise, the roadmap indicated that the loan platform would be launched for the current month, the same month in which it would be listed at the exchange offices; while the launch of the portfolio was scheduled for May. None of this happened.

In theory, LoopX was going to be a P2P (peer-to-peer) lending platform that would issue Ethereum ERC20 tokens, but since the Bitcointalk publication it seemed suspicious, because the platform promised profits greater than 10%, somewhat unreal, relying on the novelties and advantages offered by cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology.

Currently, some affected by the scheme plan to register a class action. In general, investments that promise something too good to be true turn out to be a scam. In fact it is one of the most common warnings, made by different regulatory authorities, when placing money in this kind of offers.

On the other hand, a user of Reddit had already warned last month that LoopX could be a fraudulent scheme. Among his reasons, Ghostwxrk enumerated the "red flags" he had detected: lack of transparency regarding the commercial algorithm and the code, promise of constant profits and interests, lack of information regarding the development team or proof of the statements in the Book White. The user also alluded to several complaints on the Facebook page and the little interaction in networks.

It is worth mentioning that the flight of LoopX is not the first scam of the year. The well-known case of Bitconnect - also a loan platform - already has the fifth legal action against it, in which they are accused of organizing a supposed pyramid scheme. Another lawsuit still demands the reimbursement of $770,000 allegedly scammed, and previously Bitconeect had announced the closure of its home exchange and loans through its blog.

Also, also January of this year it was recorded that the case of a fraudulent initiative called Prodeum, which robbed several users and left a quite particular message for them: just the word "penis". Thus, scams related to ICOs continue to occur throughout the world, so it is important to be very careful and investigate each project in depth before daring to invest.